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AuguvSTUvS F. Moulton 







7 

Old Prouts Neck 

BY 

AUGUSTUS F. MOULTON/ 

II 

Member of Maine Historical Society and American 
Historical Association 


/ mighty perhaps, leave something so written to after 
times as they should not willingly let it die. —John Milton. 


PORTivAND, ME.: 
Marks Printing House 
1924 






Copyrighted 1924 J 
Augustus F. Mouuton 


• 






FOREWORD. 


The purpose of this little book is to give from 
the best obtainable sources an account of a locality 
which, with its vicissitudes, presents in a fairly 
complete form a picture of the early times when 
Maine in its beginnings lived under a King. The 
conversation of old people of a former genera¬ 
tion was replete with traditionary tales of striking 
events when pioneers were engaged in the experi¬ 
ment of developing a wilderness and making of 
it a people’s empire. No history of the colonial 
period omits statements concerning the attempt to 
transplant to these shores the old world methods 
of royalistic and aristocratic prerogative, exem¬ 
plified in its fullness by the Gorges Palatinate 
of Maine, with references also to the untried con¬ 
ception of popular government which had its prin¬ 
cipal planting in Puritan Massachusetts. The 
Cammock Patent anticipated by several years the 
Palatinate charter and was confirmed by Gorges. 
The sources of information are found in random 
references made in many books and records, sup¬ 
plemented by old folk lore persistently repeated, 
and which is deemed reliable. These disconnected 
relations are here brought together, making a con- 


4 


FOREWORD 


secutive narration. The ending of the long con¬ 
test between New France and New England, in 
which Fronts Neck had its part, changed the his¬ 
tory of a continent. It has seemed altogether 
worth while to put into permanent form, so as to 
be preserved, this record of old days which other¬ 
wise might, and probably would, be dissipated and 
lost. 


CONTENTS. 


Chapter. 

Page. 

I. 

Beack Point and Prouts Neck 

7 

II. 

The Cammock Patent, 

13 

III. 

The Occupation op Henry Joc- 



EEYN, . 

20 

IV. 

The Generae Situation, . 

33 

V. 

SCOTTOW AND THE INDIAN WARS 

41 

VI. 

Troubees in Peace and Troubees 



IN War,. 

55 

VII. 

The Second Setteement, . 

65 

VIII. 

This Becomes Prouts Neck, 

81 

IX. 

In the Libby Occupation, 

95 

X. 

Locations and Historicae Peans 

101 


ILLUSTRATIONS. 

Facing Page 


Prouts Neck about 1870, . . . 13 

The Bathing Beach, .... 33 

Garrison Cove at Fuee Tide, . . 41 
Prouts Neck Rocks, Southerey, . 81 

Prouts Neck House, 1870, ... 95 

The Eastern Cove, . . . • HO 

Waek to the Sanctuary, . . . 120 



OLD PROUTS NECK. 


I. 


BLACK POINT AND PROUTS 


NECK. 



little rocky peninsula situated on the 


southerly coast of Maine, known as 
Prouts Neck, has a history that in variety 
and interest is not excelled by any other spot 
upon the Atlantic coast. Its story gives a 
conspicuous illustration of the effort made 
to establish in America a civilization that 
should be based upon the idea of the divine 
right of kings, and which should make per¬ 
petual the feudal conception of aristocracy 
and class privilege based upon union of 
church and state. 

The Gorges Palatinate of Maine, as 
exemplified here, was intended to be an 
influential factor for the suppression of the 
republican tendencies of the Puritan col- 



8 


OIvD PROUTS NECK 


ony upon Massachusetts Bay. This purpose 
would have been successful had it not been 
for the Parliamentary revolt which resulted 
in establishing, for a time, the English Com¬ 
monwealth and the Protectorate of Crom¬ 
well. The story of this small locality, 
therefore, is to some extent a reflection of 
happenings which changed the political com¬ 
plexion of a great nation and the character 
of its government. 

In the earliest references made to this 
part of Scarborough it commonly is called 
Black Point. The reason for giving it this 
name is not very apparent, but when it 
is considered that the first viewpoint was 
wholly from the ocean, it seems quite likely 
that this, being a rather level region cov¬ 
ered with a mixed growth of trees, ap¬ 
peared darker in color than the pine-clad 
hill of Blue Point uplifted against the west¬ 
ern sky. The whole locality retained the 
name of Black Point until it was united 
with “Blew Point, Stratton’s Islands and the 
parts thereto adjacent” in 1658 and became 


BLACK POINT AND PROUTS NECK 


9 


a part of Scarborough. It is known that 
ships visited this locality long before any 
regular settlements were attempted. These 
vessels were small and were upon private 
adventures, having no occasion to make 
public reports. In the logs of ships of Brit¬ 
tany and other places, there are found 
accounts of voyages, fares of fish taken and 
trading done along this coast soon after its 
exploitation by French and English navi¬ 
gators, who followed quite promptly after 
Columbus made the discovery. 

Prouts Neck and the broad estuary of 
the Scarborough River made a convenient 
landing place for curing fish and for inter¬ 
course with the natives. The grant from the 
Plymouth Council to Captain Thomas Cam- 
mock, in 1631, of a tract of fifteen hundred 
acres, which included the Neck, was one of 
the earliest of the patents issued by the 
Council for New England. 

The conveyance to Cammock is said to 
have come about in manner narrated in a 
well-confirmed and quite romantic tale. It 


10 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


is a matter of record that Robert Rich, 
second Earl of Warwick, was President of 
the Council for New England, commonly 
called the Plymouth Company, which was 
authorized by King James to make allot¬ 
ments of land, and that Thomas Cammock 
was his nephew. The story is that the old 
Earl, father of Robert and the Lady Frances, 
his sister, had for an attendant one Captain 
Thomas Cammock, said to be the hand¬ 
somest and most winsome man in England. 
Lady Frances and the young captain, not¬ 
withstanding the disparity of rank, fell deeply 
in love with each other. One fine day they 
rode out in the suite of the old Earl, of 
course upon a white horse, the lady occupy¬ 
ing a pillion behind Cammock. True love 
had to have its way, and an elopement was 
whispered. Watching for an opportunity 
and putting spurs to the horse they made 
for Farnbridge Ferry, several miles away, 
and the Earl’s escort, when they found them 
missing, started in pursuit after the fugitives. 

Reaching the ferry the lovers discovered 


black point and prouts neck 


11 


that the boat was gone and the river swollen 
and turbulent. Cammock told the lady he 
could not risk her life by attempting to swim 
the river with his steed. Lady Frances, with 
the bold blood of the Warwicks in her veins, 
demanded that he go on, declaring they 
would live or die together. They took the 
water, and when the Earl, with his suite, 
arrived at the bank they were half way 
across. The call of the horses behind made 
that of the intrepid riders attempt to turn 
about, but in spite of danger they kept him 
upon his course and safely reached the oppo¬ 
site shore. Without delay they speeded to 
Malden, found a minister and were wedded. 
The deed was done, and the old Earl, the 
father of the bride, when after much delay 
he found the parties, recreant but unabashed, 
was so greatly impressed with the boldness 
and the gallantry of the event that instead of 
punishment he gave them his blessing. 

Lady Frances, however, by marrying below 
her station had forfeited her rank. This 
Thomas and Lady Frances were father and 


12 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


mother of our Thomas of the Cammock 
grant. However much they loved each 
other, the class distinctions could not be 
ignored and the social relations were un¬ 
comfortable. For this reason, it is said that 
Robert, second Earl of Warwick, when he 
came to the title, gave to his nephew. Cap¬ 
tain Thomas Cammock, second, the beau¬ 
tiful peninsula of Prouts Neck with two 
and a half square miles of territory adjacent, 
reaching along the shore to the Spurwink 
and including the harbor and landing on the 
Scarborough River, and made the redoubt¬ 
able captain demesne lord of the place with 
feudal aristocratic privileges and authority 
appertaining. 

Concerning the origin of Madame Mar¬ 
garet, the wife of Captain Thomas Cammock, 
little definite is known. All references to 
her, however, indicate that she was a fine, 
gracious and capable lady and managed her 
baronial household in most attractive and 
commendable fashion. 



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Prouts Neck about 1870 










II. 


THE CAMMOCK PATENT, 
bounds of the original Cammock 



patent, though named only in general 
terms, are quite definitely known. Legal 
controversies arose which required careful 
surveys to determine lines of ownership and 
the Court files still preserve the plans used 
in evidence. The frequency of the refer¬ 
ences to the place give an idea of its early 
importance. The limits of the fifteen hun¬ 
dred acres began on the Owascoag, Black 
Point, Scarborough River, as it was consecu¬ 
tively called, at the Black Rocks; thence 
following the river southerly to the bay; 
thence around the Prouts Neck peninsula, 
and continuing by the shore northeasterly, 
past the Atlantic House and Kirkwood 
House premises and Higgins Beach, to the 
Spurwink River near the location where was 
the Ambrose Boaden ferrying place; thence 


14 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


northwesterly up the Spurwink River past 
Mitchell’s grove to the entrance of the west¬ 
erly branch of the river; thence southwest¬ 
erly on a direct line to the house at the 
Black Rocks and place of beginning. The 
Neck proper contains about one hundred 
and twelve acres. 

The story of Fronts Neck is perhaps best 
told by tracing the line of ownership in con¬ 
secutive order from its English beginning. 
After the discovery of America by Columbus, 
in 1492, Pope Alexander VI, by virtue of his 
prerogative, issued a bull giving nearly all of 
the newly discovered heathen lands to the 
Spanish sovereign. Under this title Spain 
claimed the continent and, being mistress of 
the seas, kept others away for nearly a cen¬ 
tury. The defeat of the Great Armada by 
the English, in 1588, broke her power upon 
the ocean, and France and England set up 
for themselves rival claims to the northern 
portion, based upon discovery and occupa¬ 
tion. In 1606, by authority of King James 
of England, a joint stock company of loyal 


THE CAMMOCK PATENT 


15 


and patriotic gentlemen was organized for 
the purpose of establishing colonies in 
America. This was composed of two prac¬ 
tically separate organizations, one commonly 
called the London Company and the other 
the Plymouth Company. In 1620 a sepa¬ 
rate patent was issued to the Plymouth 
Company and this patent is the origin of 
titles in New England. 

It should be noted that in all monarchical 
countries the original possessory right to 
lands was vested in the sovereign himself. 
Blackstone and Coke state this to be the 
common and universal law. In 1622 Sir 
Ferdinando Gorges and John Mason ob¬ 
tained from the Council for New England a 
grant of the land lying between the Merri- 
mac and the Sagadahoc or Kennebec Rivers. 
In 1629 they made division, Mason taking 
New Hampshire and Gorges the part be¬ 
tween the Piscataqua and the Kennebec. 
In 1635 Great Council for New England 
dissolved, first regranting to Gorges in sev¬ 
eralty the Maine province, and this grant 


16 


OI.D PROUTS NECK 


was confirmed by King James. Thus 
Gorges became proprietor of the land, but 
with no certain authority for government. 
He forthwith gave to Thomas Cammock 
confirmation of his patent of 1631, with all 
the feudal rights appertaining to him as its 
demesne lord. Soon after, in 1639, King 
Charles supplemented the grant to Gorges 
by issuing to him the celebrated patent of 
the Palatinate of Maine, which included 
sanction of government and more of power 
and authority, it is said, than was ever 
delegated by an English sovereign to a 
subject. 

Cammock had business interests at Piscat- 
aqua and did not establish his residence in 
Maine for a couple of years. The location 
of the house which he built is not positively 
known, but pretty certainly it was at the 
Ferry Rock Point on the westerly end of 
the Country Club grounds at the mouth of 
the Scarborough River. The old landing 
just beyond, about at the location of the 
present dilapidated wharf, was a place better 


THE CAMMOCK PATENT 


17 


adapted for loading and unloading vessels 
than any along the abrupt shores of the 
Neck. Although not reputed to be arbi¬ 
trary or controversial, Cammock was posi¬ 
tive in asserting his feudal rights of lordship 
and did not allow fishing, fowling or tres¬ 
passing upon his preserves without permis¬ 
sion, but this he was, upon request, ready to 
give. “He never denyed,” he said “any that 
come with leave or in a fayre way with 
acknowledgment.” He had a tenantry of 
planters who settled around him, and others 
“to whom he appointed lotts of land, for 
which he had fees and rents.” The Indians 
were “gentle and well disposed.” Shipping 
was profitable and trading by barter with 
the natives, to whom hatchets were objects 
of supreme desire and glass beads were as 
attractive as diamonds are to us, was very 
much worth while. 

Soon after Cammock’s removal to this 
patent he was joined by his former com¬ 
panion and friend from Piscataqua, Henry 
Jocelyn. Thomas and Margaret Cammock 


18 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


seem to have been good entertainers. John 
Jocelyn, a brother of Henry, came from 
England and remained with them for more 
than a year. Later, after the decease of 
Thomas Cammock, he came again, and upon 
his return to his English home published a 
book, which he called “The Voyages of 
John Jocelyn Gent.” He tells of frequent 
ships that came, some of them quite large, 
two referred to being of three hundred 
tons burden with complements of forty-eight 
sailors. He tells quaintly of remarkable 
things. Once he went through the woods 
and thought he had discovered a gray pine¬ 
apple which proved to be a hornet’s nest, 
and his examination produced very uncom¬ 
fortable results. He saw troublesome wolves 
and great snakes. The most wonderful of 
his stories are those which he received from 
neighboring gentlemen who called at the 
house and told, perhaps over their cups, of 
what they had heard—of a great sea serpent 
coiled up like a cable on a rock; of the 
encounter of Michael Mitton of Casco with 


THE CAMMOCK PATENT 


19 


a triton or mermaid; of a remarkable litter 
of pigs, twenty-five in number. This and 
other things the author cautiously declares 
“he will neither impeach nor inforce.” 

Captain Cammock made a visit to Eng¬ 
land in 1638, when domestic troubles were 
gathering there. In 1640 he made a com¬ 
bined will and deed by which he gave, with 
the free consent of Margaret, his wife, all 
and several his estate to her, said Margaret, 
for her lifetime, then to go outright to “his 
well-beloved friend, Henry Jocelyn.” 

While on a voyage to the West Indies, in 
1643, Thomas Cammock died at Barbadoes. 
First and last he was a loyal supporter of 
royalty with its principles and its privileges, 
and of Church of England Episcopalianism. 
At his decease, after twelve years of honor¬ 
able proprietorship, the lands, leasehold 
rights and properties of the patent passed, 
with all the appurtenances thereof, to his 
widow, Margaret Cammock. He had no 
children and his legal heirs were in England. 


III. 

THE OCCUPATION OF HENRY 
JOCELYN. 

JT is a rather common belief that under 
English law women could not own prop¬ 
erty or do business independently. This 
idea comes from misapprehension. The un¬ 
married woman, spinster or widow, had no 
restrictions in such matters, except such as 
came from social prejudice. But, as to the 
married woman, there was a decided differ¬ 
ence. The family was regarded as the unit, 
and the husband was considered its proper 
representative. When, therefore, a woman 
married, unless some other arrangement was 
previously made, her real estate went “under 
coverture.” The husband had sole right of 
control and management of that. Her per¬ 
sonal estate became his outright. But, as 
there were no stocks or bonds and practi¬ 
cally nothing of personal investment char- 


THE OCCUPATION OF HENRY JOCEEYN 21 

acter, this generally was of little account. 
The furniture, spoons, “ketells” and feather 
beds were ordinarily the principal articles. 
When the husband died the coverture was 
removed, and the real property came back to 
the widow free from the incumbrance. 

These conditions could be arranged by 
so-called ante-nuptial contracts and by wills. 
An agreement regarding property made 
before marriage was and still is legally bind¬ 
ing. In the older English novels it will be 
noted that when the course of true love 
resulted in an engagement, the parties went 
promptly to a notary to draw up the “settle¬ 
ment papers.” For the same reason the 
making of wills was almost universal. Only 
the few cases of neglect or accident came 
under the general law of descent. 

Scarborough had striking examples of 
feminine ownership. Over on Blue Point 
Eleanor Bailey was a planter and a member 
of the planters’ combination. If the tradi¬ 
tion is correct, she was a forceful individual 
and could hold her own with the best of 


22 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


them. Later Madame Elizabeth Dearing 
was owner and manager of the extensive 
Nonsuch farm. With her servants, white 
and black, she carried on this establishment. 
Her reputation while living was of the best, 
and long after her decease was a fragrant 
memory. Her funeral was attended by a 
great concourse almost like that of Nancy 
Hanks Lincoln, the mother of our Civil War 
President. Her black servant, Hagar, mar¬ 
ried Captain Front’s black Caesar, and the 
names of their children appear on the record 
of baptisms in the old Black Point church. 

Henry Jocelyn, gent, the “well - beloved 
friend” of Thomas Cammock, was for a while 
general manager for Margaret. The ten¬ 
antry was largely composed of rude fisher¬ 
men, sawmill workers and farm laborers, and 
pioneer conditions were unstable. Madame 
Cammock was a true woman, and it was not 
long before she discovered that for herself 
the position of queen of a household was 
preferable to that of lady palatine with pro¬ 
prietary rights. Jocelyn had high qualities 


THE OCCUPATION OF HENRY JOCELYN 23 

for a good husband. There was a wedding 
at the mansion, and Henry Jocelyn, instead 
of being the remainder man after her life 
estate, became proprietor and manager in 
fact of the Cammock patent. 

The disorders in England arising from 
the contest between King and Parliament 
were soon reflected in disagreements around 
Prouts Neck. King Charles asserted his 
divine right to rule, to grant monopolies 
and raise ship money, without any interven¬ 
tion of a people’s parliament. The Com¬ 
mons, upon their part, asserted their privilege 
under Magna Charta to participate in pub¬ 
lic affairs. The grants and patents in New 
England had been issued by virtue of the 
royal prerogative alone. In 1640 a parlia¬ 
ment was called and soon dissolved, and in 
the same year there was summoned the Long 
Parliament. Two years later, just prior to 
the decease of Cammock, the English Civil 
War began. Old Sir Ferdinando Gorges, 
loyal to his King and to his own beliefs, 
joined the royal standard. The period of 


24 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


quiet in Maine, as well as in England, was 
at an end. 

George Cleeve at Casco Neck, now Port¬ 
land, and John Winter, Trelawney’s man at 
Cape Elizabeth, were at loggerheads about 
the boundaries of their respective patents, 
and the possessory rights of Jocelyn at Black 
Point and the Neck became involved. Prior 
to the Gorges concession and his palatinate 
grant the Plymouth Council, in its zeal for 
settlement and want of geographical knowl¬ 
edge, had issued to certain promoters title 
to a large territory by name of the Province 
of Lygonia, and this included the whole of 
the Cammock-J ocelyn premises. Parlia¬ 
ment was in full control. Cleeve went to 
England. Through his influence Alexander 
Rigby, for whom Rigby Park is named, pur¬ 
chased the Lygonia Patent with its govern¬ 
mental powers. Cleeve came back in 1643 
as the deputized Governor of Lygonia. 
Jocelyn’s title was superseded and the pro¬ 
prietorship was upside down. The new 
Governor demanded submission. The place, 


THE OCCUPATION OF HENRY JOCELYN 25 

however, -was largely royalist in sympathy. 
Their selfish interests as well as their reli¬ 
gious and loyal feelings made them, so far 
as they dared, supporters of the Cammock 
claim, which had been derived from Gorges 
and the King. Jocelyn retained his fine 
residence at the Ferry Rock, but the place 
and the people were in a state of civil com- 
rnotion. It became a question of Republi¬ 
can against Royalist, of Puritan against 
Episcopalian. 

The tide of affairs in England at first 
seemed to be in favor of King Charles. In 
1645 l^he adherents of Gorges, in their Gen¬ 
eral Court for the Province of Maine, chose 
Henry Jocelyn Governor. So far as the 
Province of Maine had a capital, it was then 
located at the Ferry Rocks. George Cleeve, 
on the other hand, retained his title as Gov¬ 
ernor of Lygonia, and his residence was at 
Casco or Portland Neck. The general con¬ 
dition was near that of civil war. 

The fortunes of the English King soon 
waned and did not revive. The Parliament 


3 


26 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


assumed the sovereignty. In 1647 the com¬ 
mittee on plantations, after due hearing and 
deliberation, made decision that the Rigby- 
Lygonia patent, being prior in date to that 
of Gorges, conveyed the title and was valid. 
Legally this disrupted the foundations of 
the Cammock grant and the conveyance to 
Jocelyn as well. There remained only the 
permissive right of occupation, and this was 
not disturbed. The decision had come from 
what was then the highest authority of the 
realm and the contestants accepted the situ¬ 
ation with the best grace they could assume. 

The rival factions apparently realized, how¬ 
ever, that to obtain any settled condition they 
must unite in behalf of the common weal. 
Deputy Governor Cleeve proceeded to organ¬ 
ize anew the Province of Lygonia in a spirit 
of concession. In 1648 a court was held 
at Black Point, quite likely at the Jocelyn 
mansion, by three judges. Governor George 
Cleeve, the militant parson, Robert Jordan, 
and the deposed Governor, Henry Jocelyn, in 
an effort to disentangle legal complications. 


THE OCCUPATION OF HENRY JOCELYN 27 

but no record remains to show what was 
done except that harmonious relations were 
established. 

The situation was indeed complicated and 
difficult. The southern boundary of the re¬ 
established Province of Lygonia was Cape 
Porpoise and the Kennebunk River. Henry 
Jocelyn, Governor of the Province of Maine, 
resided outside of its limits as determined, 
so a new man, Godfrey, was chosen in his 
place. The leasehold system of land titles 
remained as the only legal form. The un¬ 
certainties of the situation amounted almost 
to anarchy. Cleeve, Deputy President and 
Governor of Lygonia, went again to England 
to interview the Parliament, which was up¬ 
held by Cromwell and his Ironsides. 

Then Massachusetts, the strong and sys¬ 
tematic Puritan province, intervened both 
upon its own initiative and by invitation. 
Her northern boundary, expressed in her 
charter, extended to an east and west 
line three miles beyond the Merrimac River 
“and every part thereof.” At the time it 


28 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


was given no one knew that the course of 
that river turns north and that it has its 
source in the White Mountains. A literal 
compliance with the limit nominated in the 
instrument gave a line taking in southern 
Maine about to the latitude of the city of 
Bath. Cleeve resisted, Jocelyn resisted, 
Jordan of the Trelawney patent resisted, 
Governor Godfrey for the Gorges heir re¬ 
sisted also, but. Episcopalians as they were, 
they concluded upon reflection that Puritan 
stability was preferable to disorder. 

Finally, in 1658, they came to “a free and 
comfortable close.” By mutual agreement 
existing rights in Maine were recognized. 
Black Point, Blue Point and Stratton’s 
Islands were thenceforth to be called Scar¬ 
borough. Henry Jocelyn, Robert Jordan, 
George Cleeve, Henry Watts and Francis 
Neale were made Commissioners for Massa¬ 
chusetts with large powers. Though exist¬ 
ing property rights were to be recognized 
and continued as they were, it was not easy 
for two different systems to go along to- 


THE OCCUPATION OF HENRY JOCELYN 29 

gether. In the stronger colony the pioneers 
and land owners organized town meetings 
and held their homes by individual right and 
title. Her laws, imported to Maine, were not 
adapted to leasehold tenure. 

The years of disorder and attention to 
public duties had been disastrous in a finan¬ 
cial way to the proprietor of the Cammock 
patent. The receipt of rents from the ten¬ 
antry had grown small or had ceased alto¬ 
gether. New people had come, and in many 
cases had taken up favorable locations with¬ 
out leave. Dunstan Landing as a port was 
nearer the region of the best timber lands. 
The visits of ships at the Scarborough River 
wharf had become rare. Even the bene¬ 
fits expected to be realized from Massachu¬ 
setts statute regulations did not materialize, 
because her authority was contested from 
abroad before there was time to make it 
effective. 

In 1660 the Protectorate of Oliver Crom¬ 
well in England came to an end and Charles, 
the Merry Monarch, came to his own again. 


30 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


The heir of Sir Ferdinando promptly re¬ 
newed the Gorges claim to Maine, and 
Massachusetts was ordered to withdraw. 
Instead of obeying she argued the justice of 
her claim, and the old rivalry between Roy¬ 
alist and Puritan was revived. The man¬ 
sion at Ferry Rock still remained, with its 
mahogany furniture, imported from England, 
with its ample rooms where Dame Margaret 
presided, and its wide fireplace which had 
witnessed the consumption of many bump¬ 
ers of home-brewed ale and West India 
rum. Under changed conditions the master, 
Henry Jocelyn, Governor, Judge, Commis¬ 
sioner, and loyal gentleman in all those posi¬ 
tions, could not hold his own in a business 
way. The population increased, but the 
newcomers were unruly and the tenantry 
had got the New England feeling of inde¬ 
pendence. The people of the new town 
were organizing themselves without recog¬ 
nizing the proprietorship. 

In 1666 he mortgaged his patent, with its 
lands, dwelling house, outhouses, fish houses 


THE OCCUPATION OF HENRY JOCELYN 31 

and stages, not forgetting to include his 
seignioral rights and privileges, to Joshua 
Scottow, a merchant of Boston who had be¬ 
come interested in Maine timber lands, for 
the sum of three hundred nine pounds nine¬ 
teen shillings and ten pence, and in 1671, 
for the further sum of one hundred and 
eighty pounds, he confirmed and transferred 
to Scottow all of his right and interest in 
the whole property and appurtenances. 
Jocelyn, with his wife, went to the Pemaquid 
settlement. He showed his regard for the 
old home by occasional visits and acted 
sometimes as manager for the new owner, 
and once at least was commander of the 
garrison in the time of Indian hostilities. 
He was appointed to a governmental office 
at Pemaquid, which he filled with honorable 
distinction until the time of his decease at 
an advanced age. 

For about fifty years Henry Jocelyn was 
almost continuously in public official posi¬ 
tions, and it is a matter of common remark 
that, all in all, he may, with the possible 


32 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


exception of George Cleeve, be regarded as 
the most prominent individual in early colo¬ 
nial Maine. 






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IV. 

THE GENERAL SITUATION. 
J^EFERENCES made to Maine in the 
annals of the early voyagers indicate 
that it was regarded as the most desirable 
position on the Atlantic coast. This is 
shown by the fact that Sir Ferdinando 
Gorges, to whom was given first choice, 
made it his selection for a province of his 
own. Through the influence of Robert, 
Earl of Warwick, President of the Plymouth 
Council, his nephew, Thomas Cammock, 
was evidently given his option of locations, 
and he had for a couple of years previous 
been making himself acquainted with the 
vicinity. No section, not even Pemaquid or 
York, had qualities more prominently attrac¬ 
tive than those of the Cammock grant. 

The reason of the quest for Maine be¬ 
comes apparent when we consider its valu¬ 
able assets, which were for those times more 


34 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


important than appears to us. Cured fish 
found a market everywhere, and it was said 
that more fish were taken off this coast than 
anywhere else, the banks of Newfoundland 
not excepted. One writer at that time de¬ 
clared that the Maine fisheries produced 
more of net income than the Spanish gold 
mines. The fur trade was a bonanza of 
profit. Skins of otter, sable, beaver and 
silver fox could be obtained in exchange for 
things worth but few pence. The lumber 
from the giant pines was of world-renowned 
pre-eminence. The English navy got its 
masts almost wholly from Maine, and prices 
for masts were exceedingly high. The de¬ 
velopment of the sugar industry in the West 
Indies made great demand for material for 
sugar boxes and barrels for molasses and 
rum. The navigable rivers made the inte¬ 
rior land accessible. Water power for mills 
existed everywhere. It was products from 
Maine that enabled the Plymouth Pilgrim 
Fathers to pay off the debts which they had 
incurred. Safe harbors made shelter and 


THK GENERAI. SITUATION 


35 


ready intercourse along the whole coast 
available. As to accessibility, Maine, with 
its secure roadsteads for ships and its varie¬ 
gated coast reaching toward England, was 
regarded as the first objective for mariners. 
Monhegan Island was a common meeting 
place. 

For the ships of the time the little harbors 
of Garrison Cove and at the river mouth 
were ample. Hay from the marshes, though 
poor in quality, furnished support for cattle 
without the trouble of cultivation. Wild 
fowl abounded in numbers unlimited and 
the forests furnished all kinds of game. The 
soil, as compared with the coast lands of 
other colonies, was of superior fertility. 

The old highway route or trail from Port¬ 
land, then Casco, swung down through Cape 
Elizabeth, crossing the Spurwink River 
at Boaden’s ferry. In Scarborough it was 
called the King’s Highway and extended 
across the Black Point plains directly past 
the Jocelyn homestead to the Scarborough 
River, where the ferry was sufficient for 


36 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


men and horses. There were, of course, no 
wheeled vehicles. After crossing the ferry, 
it followed southerly along the coast just 
above high water mark, because “the expedi¬ 
tion of ye beach is daly hindered by observ¬ 
ance of ye tide,” and, passing Old Orchard, 
went to Saco River ferry, and thence contin¬ 
ued its winding way to Portsmouth and 
Boston. 

It was, at the time, an uncomfortable com¬ 
pliment to the quality of the place that there 
were so many claimants seeking it, and it 
was this fact which made the occupation 
of homesteads uncertain. There was the 
Gorges Palatinate Patent, upon which Cam- 
mock relied, and the Rigby-Lygonia con¬ 
veyance, which had superseded the Gorges 
title by parliamentary decision, and which, 
in turn, was now contested in the English 
Chancery Court. Massachusetts not only 
claimed it, but had actual possession, which 
proved to be, in effect, more than nine points 
of law. Besides these three, there was the 
dilatory King Charles himself, who, when 


THE GENERAL SITUATION 


37 


not occupied with troubles with his subjects, 
or with the alluring fascinations of the femi¬ 
nine beauties of his Court, desired to wipe 
off the slate all the conflicting titles and cre¬ 
ate here, instead, a new organization of reli¬ 
able aristocratic quality, with authority to 
suppress the dangerous political heresies 
that had been from the beginning set on foot 
in America and had been tolerated there too 
long. 

John Fiske, in his Beginnings of New 
England, in recounting the story of the 
Massachusetts colony, tells of the naming of 
Beacon Hill in Boston. He says that when 
it was heard that Maine, the Royalist and 
Church of England province, was, with an 
army of its own, to have control of all of 
New England, the Massachusetts people 
determined to fight for their religion and 
their liberties, and that on the highest hill 
in Boston material was gathered for a beacon 
fire, to give the alarm in case of invasion 
from that source, and in this way Beacon 
Hill got its name. 


38 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


At the time of the Jocelyn transfer it is 
estimated that there was a population of 
about three hundred in this vicinity—as 
many as the Plymouth colony had ten years 
after its inception. It was, however, some¬ 
what irregular as a community. A consid¬ 
erable proportion were sailors and fishermen. 
Jocelyn had made conveyances to some very 
substantial people who were loyal to him, 
but the tenantry had not much of personal 
regard for the general residents nor of home 
feeling for the place. The town, under its 
Massachusetts incorporation, had meetings 
as early as 1669, but the records were appar¬ 
ently kept on loose papers, and give but lit¬ 
tle information further than the marks of the 
“creturs” that were pastured on the com¬ 
mons. People were, however, eager to join 
the settlement, and most of the new inhabi¬ 
tants made their own choice of locations, 
with the idea that he who first staked out a 
claim had prior right of possession. The 
Dunstan settlement had increased to a con¬ 
siderable number of people. They had es- 


THE GENERAL SITUATION 


39 


tablished themselves by virtue of an Indian 
deed. On Blue Point Hill there was a sub¬ 
stantial so-called “combination” of planters 
and fishermen. Those occupants appear to 
have had no title at all, but they had a com¬ 
munity organization and did considerable of 
business, with Seavey’s Landing and Jones’ 
Creek, in the rear of Pine Point, for seaports. 

It is not known that there were any houses 
in this part of the town above the Nonsuch 
River. There was not much encroachment, 
except by lumbermen, upon the old haunts 
of the red men, yet the Indians had become 
well acquainted with the Canadian French, 
who had never abandoned their claim to 
Maine, and many of the natives had grown 
suspicious and sullen and aloof from the 
English. Generally speaking, the masses of 
the people at the time of the conveyance of 
Jocelyn to Scottow, after nearly forty years 
of occupation, had ceased to regard them¬ 
selves as Englishmen away from their own 
country, and had become Americans in feel¬ 
ing and in action. The roast beef and home 


40 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


life of old England had to them lost their 
traditional attraction. The New England 
atmosphere had in it too much of individual 
independence to foster the growth of aristo¬ 
cratic traditions, and the republicanism of 
Massachusetts Bay had set the popular pace 
even upon the Cammock Patent. Town 
meetings in feudal Maine were an innova¬ 
tion, and voting qualifications were question¬ 
able, but the townsmen readily adapted them¬ 
selves to the system, and class distinctions 
relapsed largely into innocuous desuetude. 
The summers were of course delightful as 
well as busy. The little houses were com¬ 
fortable. The food supplies from farms, sup¬ 
plemented with venison and game obtained 
from the forests and the easy products of the 
seashore, were wholesome and abundant. 
With candles and fuel galore, the winters 
were times of pleasure as well as of activity. 
Probably they got as much of happiness and 
contentment out of life as do those of the 
feverish and more cultivated times in which 
we live. 


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Garrison Cove at Fuee Tide 





V. 

SCOTTOW AND THE INDIAN 
WARS. 


the time 1671, when Jocelyn made his 
conveyance, the Massachusetts colony, 
which had been ordered by the Commission¬ 
ers of Charles 11 to withdraw from Maine, 
had, after three dilatory years, resumed its 
authority and management and was then in 
control. New inhabitants had established 
themselves, mostly by agrarian law, which 
meant individual option. They chose town 
officers and sent representatives to the 
General Court at Boston. The title was 
evidently based upon Massachusetts right 
rather than upon that of Gorges or Rigby, 
though holdings acquired from them had 
been in general terms affirmed. Black Point 
was said to have fifty dwellings, the greater 
part of which must have been located within 
the Cammock patent. No one, it was said, 
could “enjoy with certainty what he hath 


42 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


labored upon and possessed,” though Gov¬ 
ernor Godfrey declared that “the Province 
of Maine is of more consarnment to his 
majestie than all New England besides.” 

While Maine, by reason of the contention 
of rival claimants, had no really stable inhab¬ 
itants, Massachusetts was well developed, 
with an established and orderly population of 
more than thirty thousand, and Boston was 
a commercial town of some five thousand. 

Joshua Scottow, the new proprietor, was 
a prosperous and well-to-do merchant of 
Boston. He already had a farm of two 
hundred acres above Dunstan, purchased of 
Abraham Jocelyn, brother of Henry, which 
included the conspicuous hill which still 
bears his name. This farm he must have 
acquired for its timber, as there were no 
resident settlers so far inland. He is repre¬ 
sented as having large interests in lumber 
and vessels, as trading in beaver and furs, 
and as having so many workmen in his 
employ that in this year 1671 he had special 
license from the County Court “to sell wynes 


SCOTTOW AND THE) INDIAN WARS 


43 


and liqquors in small quantities to fishermen 
and others.” He did not for some time 
reside upon his Cammock’s Neck lands, but 
employed Henry Jocelyn as manager there. 
No mention is made of his having occupied 
the mansion at Ferry Rock. He erected, 
probably under the supervision of Jocelyn, a 
house fronting upon Garrison Cove, on the 
westerly side of the Neck, the location of 
the old Libby residence, now owned by the 
estate of Charles E. Morgan. This was a 
few years later called Scottow’s garrison, and 
also Jocelyn’s garrison. The living spring, 
which still flows underneath the steep banks 
in front, was a valuable asset. He had come 
from England prior to 1639 and was some¬ 
thing of a military man, and had been for a 
dozen years a member of the Boston Artil¬ 
lery, of which company he was commissioned 
ensign or lieutenant in 1657. 

Scottow was, under his conveyance, in the 
nature of an absentee landlord, though the 
English tenantry system of landholding was 
quite ignored. He appears never to have 


44 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


been well acquainted with the people, and 
even when he came among them to reside, 
was not of the popular stamp. His pub¬ 
lished books show him to have been dis¬ 
tinctly Puritan in religious belief. 

For about four years his business was ex¬ 
tensive and prosperous, and he had a consid¬ 
erable number of vessels and crews engaged 
in fishing. The shore along the landing on 
the Scarborough River was called the flake 
yards. The number of inhabitants increased. 
They dwelt evidently in comfort and con¬ 
tentment in their homes scattered about the 
patent, though there is no evidence of any 
house upon the Neck except that of the pro¬ 
prietor himself. Then, almost without warn¬ 
ing, came widespread hostility among the 
Indians. That this was quite unexpected is 
indicated by the fact that the white men had 
no defensive military organization whatever. 

It is only within comparatively recent 
times that Indian characteristics and tribal 
relations among themselves have been well 
understood. In France there was union 


SCOTTOW AND THE INDIAN WARS 


45 


of church and state. The devoted Jesuit 
fathers who went from their French homes 
to America upon their missions were repre¬ 
sentatives both of the Church and the King. 
Wherever they went they were required to 
send annually written reports to the home 
government. These reports, or “relations,” 
were preserved, and Francis Parkman spent 
long years of laborious research among their 
writings and the official French reports, and 
from them produced his striking histories of 
New France and of Indian policies, together 
with an account of their intercourse with the 
Canadian French and the attacks made upon 
the English colonies. 

The vast tract of wilderness between the 
Mississippi River and the Atlantic Ocean 
was divided irregularly between two great 
aggregations or families of tribes, distin¬ 
guished by radical difference of their lan¬ 
guages. Those in the East were the various 
clans of the Algonquins. In the West, 
mainly in New York, were the powerful 
Iroquois groups of the Five Nations. The 


46 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


life business of all was war. Their hatred of 
each other was hereditary and deadly. The 
French courted and obtained the friendship 
of the Algonquins. Of these the Abenaki 
or Easterners were residents of Maine. It 
is a common error to say that the French 
understood and were upon friendly terms 
with the natives. This is true so far as 
regards the eastern Algonquins, but the 
good relations with and the friendship of 
these allies brought upon them the impla¬ 
cable vengeance of the Iroquois, and the 
troubles of the French with the Indians 
were even more serious than those of the 
English. 

Scarborough was a favorite haunt of the 
aborigines. The seashore and the marshes 
were resorts of multitudes of wild fowl. Fish 
abounded in the rivers and streams and along 
the coast. The clams especially furnished 
food, both in summer and in winter. At 
Winnock’s or Plummer’s Neck and at other 
places are great shell heaps, showing that 
this was, for generations uncounted, a winter 


SCOTTOW AND THE INDIAN WARS 


47 


home for the natives. They lived in groups 
or tribes, supposed to have originated from 
common ancestors, but did not recognize 
authority derived from descent. The chiefs 
and sachems were leaders, selected generally 
for their physical prowess and mental capac* 
ity, and were deposed and changed at will. 
This fact was not well understood by Euro¬ 
peans and was a cause of frequent mistakes, 
as it was commonly assumed that a chief was 
a prince who might himself make agreements 
binding upon his people. Marriage was not 
known, but they assorted themselves in pairs 
and were generally faithful to each other. 
To the children both father and mother 
were devoted. The various groups had re¬ 
gional locations upon which no one was 
allowed to trespass without permission. The 
Indian mind had no conception of individ¬ 
ual ownership of land more than of water or 
air. The white man’s deed of conveyance, 
therefore, was without meaning for them 
other than as a permit to share the occupa¬ 
tion without objection. 


48 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


At the first coming of the random pioneers 
the Indians regarded them with rather cau¬ 
tious and suspicious friendship. They were 
pleased to barter their furs and products 
for the goods and wares of civilized people. 
Beads and ornamental trinkets were much 
desired, being far superior to their labori¬ 
ously wrought ornaments. Strange to say, 
most of them had an almost ungovernable 
passion for liquor. Firearms and iron tools 
soon took the place of bows and arrows and 
stone implements. On the whole there was 
for more than forty years an era of good feel¬ 
ing between the races. The better class of 
whites knew that it was politic to keep on 
good terms with the aboriginal occupants; 
yet there were quite often bad and drunken 
men who made trouble. 

Various reasons are given for the out¬ 
break of hostilities, but the real cause is ap¬ 
parent. There existed here in lesser degree 
the same condition of affairs that impelled 
the southern Indians in King Philip’s War 
to attempt to drive away the encroaching 


SCOTTOW AND THE INDIAN WARS 


49 


English. The white men were coming in 
ever increasing numbers. They were leav¬ 
ing the coast and advancing into the interior. 
They were taking up large tracts of land 
which they called farms, and were claiming 
to hold those lands for themselves to the 
exclusion of the natives. The deer and the 
game were diminishing. The splendid for¬ 
ests, intensely venerated and loved, were fall¬ 
ing before the settler’s axe. The ancient 
heritage of the red man was being occupied 
under paper deeds upon which deluded 
sachems had placed their totems or marks. 
They were bright enough to see that all this 
meant ruin or death to the Indian. They 
could not move west, for there their deadly 
foes, the ferocious and mighty Mohawks, 
awaited them with scalping knife and tor¬ 
ture. The old relations had been for the 
most part friendly, but some untoward events 
had recently happened. 

There was, about this time, a disturb¬ 
ance to the eastward, where several Indians 
were killed upon slight provocation. Mogg 


50 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


Heigon, the Mogg Megone of Whittier’s 
fanciful poem, was a capable and influential 
chieftain. His principal residence was at 
“The Arrowpoint Cape” southwest of Saco 
River. He spoke English freely and was a 
friend of Henry Jocelyn. He had been in¬ 
duced to affix his totem mark “for a som of 
money” to a deed to William Phillips, and 
found that he had surrendered the whole of 
the present town of Kennebunk, the heritage 
of his people, and had left them and himself 
homeless. 

More even than that was the fatal event 
that alienated the friendship of Squando, the 
Sagamore of Saco. Squando was an influ¬ 
ential chief and a praying Indian, and had 
always been faithful to the white men. The 
story is told that at the critical period when 
King Philip’s emissaries were abroad, some 
drunken fellows at Saco Falls, seeing an 
Indian squaw in a canoe with her baby, 
thought they would prove the report that an 
Indian could swim naturally. They upset 
the canoe and the baby sank. The mother 


SCOTTOW AND THE INDIAN WARS 


51 


rescued her child but soon after it died. 
These victims of brutal folly proved to be 
Squando’s wife and his only baby boy. As 
a result the friendly chief became an enraged 
and bitter enemy. Some of the Indians told 
their intimate white friends that trouble was 
impending. The Boston authorities noti¬ 
fied the Scarborough people of danger, but, 
except to fit up a few houses with loopholes 
for garrisons, nothing was done. 

In the early autumn of 1675 blow fell 
with the stealthy suddenness characteristic 
of Indian warfare. It was no organized at¬ 
tack, for they knew nothing of organization. 
A roving band found Robert Nichols, an old 
man, with his wife, in their house near Fox- 
well’s Brook and killed both of them and 
burned the house. A month later an attack 
was made upon the Alger garrison at Duns- 
tan. Andrew Alger was killed and his 
brother Arthur mortally wounded. That 
place seems then to have been wholly aban¬ 
doned. The people gathered about Scot- 
tow’s garrison at Garrison Cove, on the 


52 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


westerly side of the Neck, facing Pine Point. 

The following year, 1676, the chieftain, 
Mogg Heigon, assembled a large band of 
warriors for an attack upon the Black Point 
settlement. Falmouth had fallen and all 
the Scarborough inhabitants withdrew in 
panic, abandoning the whole place to the 
exultant Indians. Mogg, with his forces, 
passed on and went elsewhere for winter 
quarters. Thereupon a considerable part of 
the white people returned and again occu¬ 
pied the Scottow garrison, which had not 
been destroyed. In May, 1677, Mogg, hav¬ 
ing learned that a large part of the settlers 
had come back, gathered his red army and 
in military fashion beseiged the fort. In a 
direct frontal charge, a thing quite unusual 
in Indian warfare, Mogg, the brave leader, 
was killed. This ended the attack and 
his followers retreated, having first secretly 
buried him and his slain warriors on a sandy 
ridge near The Willows hotel. For more 
than two centuries these dead men, seated 
in a circle around their chief, kept their vigil 


SCOTTOW AND THE INDIAN WARS 


53 


until their well-preserved skeletons, acciden¬ 
tally discovered, were removed by the re¬ 
morseless white men. 

Within a few days after the siege was 
raised, a company of Massachusetts soldiers, 
under command of Captain Benjamin Swett 
and Lieutenant James Richardson, sent at 
the instance of Scottow, arrived for aggres¬ 
sive war, with headquarters at the Prouts 
Neck fort. Unknown to them, about a 
month after the death of Mogg, a force of 
some five hundred Indians had gathered, 
apparently to avenge the killing of the great 
chief. The English force, with some friendly 
Indian allies, were skillfully decoyed from 
the fortification and led into an ambush at 
Moor’s Brook, near the present Black Point 
schoolhouse. This was one of the most 
bloody of Indian battles. Swett and Rich¬ 
ardson were killed with forty of the English, 
being nearly half of the force. The sur¬ 
vivors succeeded in gaining the shelter of 
the garrison. In 1678 a dubious peace was 
made with the Indians, the white people 


54 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


agreeing to pay tribute to them. The three 
years’ war, so called, came to a halt rather 
than to a conclusion. The French, by fur¬ 
nishing arms and supplies, kept the natives 
aggressive and hostile. 



VI. 

TROUBLES IN PEACE AND 
TROUBLES IN WAR. 

J^URING the years when the Black Point 
settlement was experiencing consider¬ 
able of prosperity together with much of the 
opposite, history was in the making across 
the sea in such fashion that its reflex waves 
affected this little peninsula. In 1677, while 
the savage war was raging, the slow moving 
English Chief Justices rendered their deci¬ 
sion that the judgment of the Parliamentary 
Commission in 1646, sustaining the validity 
of the Lygonia-Rigby patent, was errone¬ 
ous and that the palatinate grant to Gorges 
conveyed the only legal title. All that had 
grown up under Massachusetts direction, 
therefore, was unauthorized and void. Fur¬ 
thermore King Charles, in his sluggish fash¬ 
ion, had determined that he would have 
Maine erected into a real aristocratic duke- 


56 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


dom, and that he would bestow it upon his 
favorite illegitimate son by Lucy Walters, 
whom he had made Duke of Monmouth. 

It was not, however, in the book of fate 
for Monmouth to erect a ducal castle upon 
the Neck, or elsewhere in Maine. The 
impecunious heir of Sir Ferdinando found 
that he had come into possession of a battle 
ground rather than a province, and the thrifty 
Puritans of Massachusetts Bay “hasted away” 
and for the sum of twelve hundred and fifty 
pounds sterling purchased the Palatinate 
with all its lands, authorities and emolu¬ 
ments. Massachusetts had more than held 
her own, but His Majesty bitterly resented 
what he considered an affront. Proceedings 
were set on foot to annul the charter of the 
Massachusetts Bay colony. The declared 
object for her purchase was not to acquire 
the territory, valuable as it was, but to pre¬ 
vent the establishment of a royal province 
with powers of overlordship; and this sug¬ 
gested the fact that the example of “the 
generall town meeting” and individual owner- 


TROUBLES IN PEACE AND IN WAR 57 

ship of land in New England was having a 
dangerous influence in old England. 

Upon the acquisition of the Gorges Palati¬ 
nate of Maine by the Massachusetts colony, 
a difficult question arose concerning the 
government of the province. It could not 
be made a part of Massachusetts proper, for 
contained in the Gorges grant were fixed 
provisions for a particular system of prop¬ 
erty holding and management. There was 
no authority for representation in the Gen¬ 
eral Court. The two provinces were in their 
inception and organization distinct and sep¬ 
arate. A solution of the problem was found 
by considering the purchasing colony as lord 
proprietor in place of Gorges. Thereupon 
Thomas Danforth, its deputy governor, was 
in 1680 appointed President of Maine, in 
accordance with the terms of the transferred 
patent, and invested with powers for govern¬ 
ment in subordination to the new proprietor. 
Under this arrangement he confirmed the 
titles of the occupants and authorized leases 


5 


58 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


in accordance with the Gorges charter. The 
leasehold system of land holding, with quit 
rents, therefore, came back again. 

The population increased, but the people 
still lived in fear of the Indians, who, though 
it was nominally a time of peace, were far 
from friendly. Captain Scottow’s business 
appears to have been large and prosperous. 
In 1681 he proposed to the townsmen that 
they build, according to plans which he 
would furnish and upon his land, a large 
stockade fort which should be more ample 
for protection than the existing garrison 
upon the Neck. The grant was to be made 
“on condition of paying Captain Scottow 
12d yearly as being their demesne lord.” 
The town in meeting accepted the proposi¬ 
tion and “the great fortification” so-called 
was erected with enthusiasm and alacrity. 
Its formidable proportions created a feeling 
of security, though there never was occasion 
to occupy it as a place of refuge. The fort 
was built of palisades set in a ditch wall; 
the location was on the ridge in the Atlantic 


troubles in peace and in war 


59 


House field, near the residence of John M. 
Kaler. A part of one of the bastions or 
flankers may still be traced in the edge of 
the woods. 

In 1684 President Danforth, pursuant to 
authority given him, executed the well-known 
Danforth deed of Scarborough. It was a 
conveyance to Captain Joshua Scottow and 
six others, trustees, “in behalf of and for 
the benefit of the inhabitance of the Town 
of Scarborough” of all the lands within the 
Cammock patent and within the bounds of 
Scarborough as set out in the act of the 
General Assembly of Massachusetts in 1658, 
but excepting and reserving all rights and 
royalties appertaining to His Majesty in the 
Gorges charter, and confirming unto the in¬ 
habitants “all lands or propertys to them 
justly belonging.” Quit rents, however, were 
to be retained and paid to the Governor and 
Company of Massachusetts Bay. Under 
provisions of this deed the townsmen made 
allotments of the common lands, but appar¬ 
ently little attention was given to the rent 


60 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


paying provision. There was said then to 
be a slow, but steady growth in numbers 
and in prosperity. 

At about this time there came another 
and a complete change in governmental 
matters. Proceedings had been pending in 
England since the time of the purchase in 
1677 for the annulment of the Massachusetts 
colony charter. May 21, 1684, the English 
Court of Chancery issued its decree entirely 
revoking the charter. The letters patent 
were thereby in terms “cancelled, vacated 
and annihilated.” All former grants were 
made void, and all lands under Massachu¬ 
setts dispensation reverted to the direct 
ownership of the English King. The oc¬ 
cupants became mere trespassers without 
right. Sir Edmund Andros was made royal 
Governor and took charge in arbitrary fash¬ 
ion. The Massachusetts possession was at 
an end, and all of her doings in Maine 
were declared invalid. Andros attempted to 
arrange with the settlers upon a basis of 


TROUBLES IN PEACE AND IN WAR 


61 


tenantry, but without results, and there was 
general confusion. 

After four years of rule by divine right 
and unrestrained royal will, the period which 
Hawthorne calls the blackest days of New 
England, the dull tyranny of James II at 
home and abroad brought about the second 
English Revolution of 1688, when he was 
overthrown, and William and Mary were, 
without regard to succession by descent, 
elected sovereigns of England. James went 
to France and Louis XIV declared war in 
his behalf against England. The colonists 
here gave their hearty support to the new 
dispensation and Governor Andros was ar¬ 
rested and imprisoned. 

Conditions were thus favorable and re¬ 
sulted in giving to a new province, with new 
boundaries and a new name, the province 
charter of 1691, called that of the Province 
of Massachusetts Bay. This was substan¬ 
tially the same as the old colony charter 
which had been set aside. By it the Prov¬ 
ince of Maine was made a part of the new 


62 


OI.D PROUTS NECK 


aggregation and became subject to its laws. 
The royal grant, expressed in the province 
charter, did not give individual ownership of 
lands. They were to be held “in free and 
common socage,” that is, by definite rental. 
The grants under provisions of the Gorges 
palatinate, and the Trelawney or Lygonia 
holdings, were also leasehold and nothing 
more. The Danforth deed, coupled with 
the enactments of the General Court, had 
gone farther. The Cammock patent had its 
own provisions. It was a pretty complica¬ 
tion from a legal point of view. 

Meanwhile Prouts Neck had been saved 
from legal strife by the infinitely more seri¬ 
ous arbitrament of war. In 1690, just prior 
to the time of the province charter. Count 
Frontenac, the greatest of the French Gover¬ 
nors, had been by Louis XIV given full con¬ 
trol in Canada. He had served a previous 
term, and, more than anyone else, seems to 
have realized the resources of the American 
continent and the value of Maine to Canada. 
The war between France and England had 


TROUBLES IN PEACE AND IN WAR 


63 


been in existence for a year. Frontenac 
promptly organized a strong military expe¬ 
dition against the Maine settlements. The 
force was a combination of French, western 
Indian converts and such native Indians as 
he could assemble. In May, 1690, having 
destroyed almost everything to the eastward, 
the French with their Indian allies made an 
attack upon Casco Neck, now Portland. It 
was defended by a stockade of considerable 
strength, called Fort Loyal, and four garri¬ 
son houses. The fort was captured after 
strong resistance, and the greater part of the 
occupants were massacred. At Black Point 
and the Neck defense was considered hope¬ 
less, and without a contest the great fortifi¬ 
cation and the strong garrison house were 
abandoned and the entire population with¬ 
drew. The French and Indians continued 
their career of conquest as far as Wells, at 
the southern point of Maine. The church, 
the fortifications and the houses were de¬ 
stroyed, and for a dozen years the place 
was vacant of English inhabitants, and the 


64 


OI.D PROUTS NECK 


Indians roamed there at will. There seems 
to have been no regular occupation by the 
French, for the very good reason that Fron- 
tenac was too fully occupied with the terri¬ 
ble contest with the western natives along 
the upper St. Lawrence and about the Great 
Lakes to maintain an offensive elsewhere. 
It may truthfully be said that Prouts Neck 
and Maine were saved from French domina¬ 
tion by the Indians of the powerful Five 
Nations. 

Captain Joshua Scottow died in Boston 
in 1698, leaving his Black Point lands to 
his wife, with remainder to his children, by 
a somewhat complicated will. The same 
year Count Frontenac died, and the govern¬ 
ment of Canada passed into weaker hands. 


VII. 

THE SECOND SETTLEMENT. 



inquiry is quite often made why 


there was little or no effort made to 
reoccupy Maine for so long a period after 
the French conquest. By the charter of 
William and Mary the place had become 
incorporated with and made a part of the 
strong and populous Province of Massachu¬ 
setts Bay. Consideration of affairs between 
the French and the English gives a suffi¬ 
cient reason. At the same time when the 
French occupation was being successfully 
accomplished, a powerful expedition was 
attempted under direction of Sir William 
Phipps, the first appointed royal Governor, 
for the capture of Quebec. That place was 
regarded as the particular source of the 
French activities. The assembling of a force 
for this purpose strained the colonial re¬ 
sources to the utmost. King William had a 


66 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


European war upon his hands so that he 
could render no assistance. The New Eng¬ 
landers were a peaceful and agricultural 
people, and were without any regular mili¬ 
tary establishment. Yet all the men and 
ships that could be obtained were brought 
together for the attack upon the Canadian 
stronghold. Canada under Frontenac was 
a military province. It was organized for 
war. Its soldiery, though fewer in point of 
numbers, were trained and efficient. 

The expedition was an utter failure, and 
was attended with appalling loss of men 
and ships. The Church of Our Lady of the 
Victories was erected in Quebec to com¬ 
memorate the outcome. Full possession of 
Maine by the French, however, was at the 
time prevented by fear of this expedition, 
and was further hindered by the fact that 
the struggle with the Five Nations, the Mo¬ 
hawks and their brethren, called the blood¬ 
hounds of the earth, required the full atten¬ 
tion of Count Frontenac. He was obliged 
to summons home all of the French troops 


THE SECOND SETTLEMENT 


67 


for defensive purposes. The Canadian Gov¬ 
ernor was striving to transfer that war to 
New York and thereby get possession of the 
interior of the continent. 

The Jesuit missionaries, therefore, with a 
few French officers, were all that were left 
to supervise the aggressive contest with the 
English in this locality. These missionaries 
had acquired complete control of the east¬ 
ern Indians, and they were vastly capable. 
No English settlement in Maine could be 
safe for a moment. Attacks were constantly 
made upon the occupied places along the 
southern border and reaching into Mas¬ 
sachusetts itself. York was captured and 
destroyed. Wells barely escaped. Thus 
Massachusetts was for the time exhausted 
financially and otherwise, and could assist 
but little even for defence. Occasionally 
raids were attempted with ships along the 
eastern coast, but with small degree of suc¬ 
cess. Prouts Neck in its abandonment was 
not of much consequence except as a place 
for infrequent landings. Most of the inhab- 


68 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


itants were established elsewhere, many in 
Salem and Lynn; and so there is hardly 
anything to relate about this locality until 
after the peace of Ryswick between England 
and France, which was proclaimed in 1698, 
the year when the great Governor’s earthly 
career came to an end. The peace, how¬ 
ever, was for the border province not even a 
truce. No adjustment was made of bound¬ 
aries in Maine and hostilities there were 
hardly suspended. 

The second settlement is generally reck¬ 
oned as having begun in 1702. This, how¬ 
ever, was no organized occupation. The 
date is probably selected because in 1703 
an attack by French and Indians was made 
upon a garrison house which had been built 
there, and the gallantry of its successful 
defence was such that it attracted wide his¬ 
torical notice. The fort, so called, was sit¬ 
uated at the westerly end of the Neck, upon 
the bank southerly of the West Point House, 
and its occupants, eight in number, consisted 
of Captain Larrabee and four Libbys of the 


THE SECOND SETTLEMENT 


69 


first settlement, with three new men, Pine, 
Blood and another not named, all of whom, 
it is said, came from Lynn. The full name 
of Pine is not given, but there can be little 
question that he was the Charles Pine—the 
only one’ of the name ever mentioned—who 
from that time onward distinguished himself 
in the defence of the little community. 

The brief pause following the peace of 
Ryswick had ended, and a new war, that 
of the Spanish Succession, called in America 
Queen Anne’s War, had been declared in 
1702, though news of hostilities had proba¬ 
bly not reached the Neck. The attacking 
force is said to have consisted of five hun¬ 
dred French and Indians, who had destroyed 
the incipient communities at Falmouth and 
Cape Elizabeth. The Prouts Neck block¬ 
house had a commanding position. Each 
occupant was a dead shot, and they defiantly 
refused to surrender. The making of a fron¬ 
tal attack against it was not a pleasant prop¬ 
osition, so under French direction an attempt 
was made to undermine the so-called fort by 


70 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


digging under the sandy bank. Before this 
was completed a heavy rain caused it to cave 
in, making a ravine, and the attack Avas 
abandoned. From this time others kept 
coming, and the place took on permanence. 

The new population of Scarborough, at 
first few in numbers, steadily increased, but 
a comparison of surnames shows that there 
were but few of the former settlers who came 
back. The houses had been destroyed, and 
the years of absence had obliterated land¬ 
marks. Yet the local attractiveness of the 
place remained and the old assets of fishing, 
farming, hunting and lumber were still there. 
For some years it was a period of strenuous 
frontier life and hazard. The peninsula and 
its vicinity were the main positions of safety 
and resort. Beyond those contracted limits 
there was always danger from the hostile and 
stealthy red men, who capriciously came 
and went. Old traditions have been handed 
down of romantic as well as distressing epi¬ 
sodes, and of the heroism of men and women. 

The names of Charles Pine and Richard 


the second settlement 


71 


Hunniwell are prominent in these tales of 
adventure. The stories about Pine espe¬ 
cially have an element of chivalrous daring. 
He is called a hunter and was said to have 
come from London and to have received 
regular remittances of money from abroad. 
He was feared rather than hated by the 
Indians. A popular anecdote about him 
relates that when the warriors were around 
in force they were accustomed to gather in 
the early morning along the curving beach 
on the southerly side of the now Country 
Club grounds, and, safely out of range, to 
challenge with taunts and insults the occu¬ 
pants of the blockhouse fort, which stood 
facing in that direction, to come out and 
fight. Once, before daylight. Pine went up 
the beach alone with his two guns and con¬ 
cealed himself in the seaweed and flotsam at 
the place where the noble red men were 
wont to assemble. They came as usual, 
and, as the relator tells the event in nautical 
phrase, the biggest one of all, after he had 
exhausted his vocabulary of abuse, “turned 


72 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


his back to the garrison and placed his hand 
upon his stern'' Pine fired at the mark 
indicated and killed the pompous braggart 
instantly. All the rest fled in terror and 
panic. Whereupon Pine gathered up the 
equipments of his slain foe and sauntered 
back to his companions. At another time 
he went, again alone, beyond the Black 
Rocks and hid himself in an abandoned 
house in the woods which the savages used 
for a meeting place, and as they came in 
single file killed two at one discharge of his 
big musket. Again the others fled in fright, 
and Pine collected the spoil at his leisure 
and carried it back with him. An old map 
shows Pine’s later residence across the bay 
at Pine Point. When the more quiet days 
came, he obtained a large tract of land on 
the Broad Turn road, near the Rocky Hill, 
where he lived and died, and in a neglected 
graveyard there his remains lie with an un¬ 
marked headstone. 

The young wife of Lieutenant Hunniwell, 
with several of his children, were massacred. 


THK SECOND SETTLEMENT 73 

it is said, on the spot where the little red 
house stands at the forks of the road near 
Plummer’s Neck. The vision of his mur¬ 
dered wife, as it is expressed, “never left his 
eye.” He hunted and slew the Indians as if 
they were wild beasts, and the fear which he 
inspired was largely his protection. Once 
when mowing at Greenleaf’s Point, an Indian 
crept up and seized his gun, which was lean¬ 
ing against a haycock. Hunniwell turned 
and strode so fiercely toward his exultant foe 
that the warrior, in trepidation, stepped back¬ 
ward into a muddy salt pond and Hunniwell 
cut off his head with the scythe which he 
held. 

A bright woman, being alone with her 
child in an isolated house, was startled to 
see stealthy savages approaching. Instantly 
she closed the door and called loudly the 
names of several men, and thrust repeatedly 
the muzzle of a musket through different 
loopholes. The raiders were deceived by 
her tactics and withdrew, and thus her life 
and that of her child were saved. 


6 


74 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


The Indians at length wiped out their 
score of vengeance against Hunniwell. One 
peaceful morning in autumn the cattle on 
the commons had disappeared. A band of 
twenty men, unarmed and without thought 
of danger, sauntered from the stockade to 
look them up. At the southerly end of 
Massacre Pond a numerous body of the sav¬ 
ages lay in ambush, and with a concerted dis¬ 
charge they killed nineteen, and among them 
Old Hunniwell. One only escaped. The 
body of Hunniwell was horribly gashed and 
mangled. The slain were buried together 
in a single grave and covered with a high 
mound of earth. “The Great Grave,” situ¬ 
ated across the road opposite Mr. P. W. 
Sprague’s game keeper’s house, was conspic¬ 
uous for many years and is noted upon an 
old map. These stories are a part of the 
ancient folklore, and as Wendell Phillips 
declared, “tradition even though varied is 
nearly always based upon actual fact.” 

In spite of the danger and want of organ¬ 
ization, new people kept coming, largely 


THE SECOND SETTLEMENT 


75 


from Massachusetts and New Hampshire, 
and with enlargement of numbers the feel¬ 
ing of security and unity increased also. 

The Peace of Utrecht between England 
and France came in 1713. Louis XIV, “the 
Grand Monarque,” had to make a humiliating 
peace. The absurd waste of national funds 
upon the adornment of Versailles, and other 
royal extravagances lavished upon Madame 
Maintenon and otherwise, had crippled the 
resources of France. In the negotiations 
Louis strove to retain Acadia, meaning 
Eastern Maine, and declared that by the 
loss of Acadia “Canada will become useless, 
and the French marine be utterly destroyed.” 

This expression calls attention to the 
extraordinary importance and great profit of 
the mast industry. The forests of Europe 
are largely of hard wood with branching 
trees. The superior sailing quality of 
English ships was due in no small degree to 
their tall masts, obtained from the towering 
straight pines of Maine. Pepys in his Diary 
speaks of the building of warships being 


76 


OI.D PROUTS NECK 


suspended for want of masts from America. 
Scottow and Westbrook were in this trade. 
Doubtless the long canal downward from 
Dunstan Landing was constructed to assist 
the passage of the mast-laden ships. 

It provokes a smile to speak of this little 
point of land in connection with the world’s 
affairs, but from its position it was like an 
aspen branch, so situated as to be moved 
upon by the winds of foreign relations. 

Though open war between the French 
and English had ceased, the peace did not 
bring repose to Maine. It left the embers 
of war smouldering, ready for the next thirty 
years to burst into flame. Louis XIV died 
in 1715, and the feeble boy king, Louis XV, 
came to the French throne, with government 
by regent and by Madame the Pompadour. 
The Indian wars went on, with Canadian 
assistance and stimulated by what the per¬ 
sistent missionaries felt to be the highest 
religious purpose and devoted loyalty to la 
belle France, But the settlements increased 
in population and strength, the frontier line 


THE SECOND SETTLEMENT 


77 


was slowly pushed back, and hostilities in 
this vicinity became mostly a matter of des¬ 
ultory raids and attacks. 

In 1720 the Scarborough township gov¬ 
ernment was re-established and the town 
records brought back from Boston, where 
they had been reposing for thirty years. 
The old feudal idea regarding the holding 
of lands, though nominally existent, was in 
fact obliterated and forgotten. With the 
coming of the German Georges the rever¬ 
ence for English royalty had lost its force. 
The greater part of the land within the 
township limits consisted of commons. The 
right to control this land was claimed under 
varying construction of Massachusetts stat¬ 
utes both by the townsmen and by an or¬ 
ganization of owners who called themselves 
“proprietors.” The disposition of these re¬ 
mote lands, however, did not affect Black 
Point, Prouts Neck and the occupied por¬ 
tions. The interior became developed fast, 
roads were laid out within the town. Fal¬ 
mouth was re-established in 1716, and soon 


78 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


there was an overland route to Portsmouth 
and Boston. The new parts of the township 
gained rapidly upon the older establishment. 

With the opening up and rapid growth of 
the more remote parts, with their wealth 
of lumber, the seacoast lost its prominence. 
Almost as the railroads later usurped the 
place of stage coaches, the travel by land 
took the place of that by boats. Pemaquid, 
Spurwink and Cammock’s Neck were no 
longer important posts and almost capitals, 
but became mere localities. 

Scottow died in Boston and was buried, 
apparently, within the Old South Church. 
Workmen in later years uncovered a rather 
elaborate headstone there, bearing his name 
and the date of his decease, January 20, 1698, 
and his age, 83 years. By his will he gave 
all of his property to Lydia, his widow, for 
her lifetime. Thus the Cammock patent, 
including the Neck, again came into the 
possession and control of a woman. Mrs. 
Scottow died in 1707, while the place was 
still hemmed in by savages and harassed by 


THE SECOND settlement 


79 


constant threats of attack. Judge Sewall and 
Scottow’s two sons-in-law, Major Thomas 
Savage and Capt. Samuel Checkley, were 
made executors of his will. They do not 
seem to have exercised personal supervision, 
and in 1728 Samuel Checkley, the surviving 
executor, by virtue of a license granted by 
“His Majestie’s Court in Boston,” conveyed 
the Neck and the patent land and properties, 
together with all feudal rights and privileges, 
and with a boundary line extending from the 
Spurwink River to a point on the Nonsuch 
above the Clay Pits Landing, and containing 
more than three thousand acres, to Timothy 
Prout, Merchant, of Boston, for the sum of 
five hundred pounds. The surplus land 
afterwards became a subject of legal contro¬ 
versy, and a map prepared for use in court 
gives a good description of the whole local¬ 
ity. It does not appear that any of the 
Scottow family, except Captain Joshua him¬ 
self, during the long period of fifty-seven 
years of ownership, became residents within 
their Black Point territory. It is stated in 


80 


OI.D PROUTS NECK 


one of the later lawsuit files that the actual 
residence even of Scottow was disputed, and 
an affidavit of Boaden, the ferryman, was filed 
to prove that “Capt. Joshua Scottow lived at 
Black Point, viz., the Neck and fort, eight 
or ten years before he was put off by ye 
Indians.” It is somewhat curious to note 
that the peninsula is never referred to as 
Scottow’s Neck. 

The second settlement, so-called, which 
became established during this period, was 
in nearly all respects a new occupation. 
The old order had changed and was not 
renewed. 









'^ V 

Bi - . • s V ' 

*' • A''! V 

r-* , -I . rf • • T* - • 

'V„ '' b'‘% . 


\ >■ V. 


. ■\ 

i H 


/ ^ - j.- ■■ ■ 

' •* / -* ■»* ■ '*“ 




Pro UTS Neck Rocks, Southerey 






VIII. 

THIS BECOMES PROUTS NECK. 


^HE purchaser, Timothy Prout, was de¬ 
scended from one of the old families 
of Boston. The Prout pew in Old South 
Church was next to that of the governor. 
He was a mature man with a family of six 
children. Three, and perhaps four, of them 
became residents here, and the others sub¬ 
sequently lived in Boston and elsewhere. 
When he came to the Neck the primitive 
conditions there had largely changed. The 
seashore, to its disadvantage, was meeting 
the competition of the inland country. The 
Half Century of Conflict between New 
France and New England, described by 
Parkman, was still existent, and did not 
cease until Wolfe captured Quebec, in 1759. 
The nations were not openly at war, but by 
using the Indian tribes for camouflage, the 


82 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


Algonquin races for France and the Five 
Nations of the Iroquois for England, the 
contest went steadily on. Maine generally 
was a buffer frontier and a dark and bloody 
battle ground, but the Scarborough settle¬ 
ments at the time of the Prout conveyance 
had become strong enough to defend them¬ 
selves. 

This condition of partial security in south¬ 
ern Maine was largely due to the destruc¬ 
tion, in 1724, of the French missionary and 
military outpost at Norridgewock, far up the 
Kennebec River. Norridgewock had over¬ 
land communication with Canada by trail 
route in common use, and was regarded as 
the principal rallying place for hostile expe¬ 
ditions. 

One of the Jesuit missionaries. Father 
Rale, had established and organized this 
Indian settlement. No man more devoted 
to his purposes than Father Rale ever lived. 
Of gentle blood and well educated, he had 
come from France and had consecrated his 
life to the conversion of the heathen natives 


THIS BECOMES PROUTS NECK 


83 


and the establishment in America of an ideal 
government, whose supreme purpose should 
be devotion to his Church and his King. 
His influence with his Indian children was 
complete. He learned to talk with them in 
their own language rather than to allow 
them to be exposed to temptation by con¬ 
versation with the English, or with reckless 
French forest rangers. To assert, as is 
sometimes done, that he was a man of peace, 
and that he did not labor and organize to 
drive away the heretic English and substi¬ 
tute for them a population obedient to what 
he conceived to be God’s will, is to make 
imputation against his sincerity and his 
character. The contest was distinctly be¬ 
tween Roman Catholicism and royal prerog¬ 
ative upon the one side, and Protestantism 
with popular government upon the other; 
and it was a time when Religion and Politics 
were in partnership. Father Rale was no 
neutral and no slacker. As representative 
of Church and King, his service was freely 


84 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


rendered without thought for his own per¬ 
sonal fortunes. 

The principal leader in the attack upon the 
Norridgewock post was Lieutenant Jeremiah 
Moulton, of York, with his ranger band. 
Moulton was a boy of four years when York 
was surprised and destroyed by the French 
and Indian attack in 1692. He saw the gen¬ 
eral massacre there. His father was killed 
and he was himself taken a captive to Canada. 
The assault upon Norridgewock was much 
like that upon York. The approach to the 
Indian settlement found it unsuspecting and 
unprepared. Two accounts are given of the 
action of Father Rale in the contest. The 
French report, given some time after the 
event, says that the missionary ran to the 
foot of the cross and was there slain. The 
English version is that, fearless and self-con¬ 
tained amid the exterminating hail of ranger 
bullets, he attempted to rally his red children, 
who were disorganized and panic-stricken, 
and that he died like a hero, gun in hand, 
trying to save his flock. Whatever the de- 


THIS BECOMES PROUTS NECK 85 

tails about the destruction of Norridgewock 
may be, the fact remains that raids upon the 
settlements thereafterward grew rare, and 
hostilities in this place became more of a 
menace than actual danger. 

Though the area of comparative safety 
was enlarged, the warfare in other places 
assumed a character of utter ferocity. The 
French paid bounties for English scalps and 
the English offered bonuses for those of 
Indians. For more than thirty years after 
Prout came to the Neck, and with little 
of intermission, the warfare went on, with 
the result that France was utterly defeated. 

It is considered a matter of surprise that 
the numerous native tribes passed almost 
completely out of existence. This was due 
to the French quite as much as to the Eng¬ 
lish. They had no mercy for their red allies. 
The Indians could not make peace if they 
would. They saw their impending doom, 
but when they would make a treaty, as they 
sometimes did, a detachment of so-called 
“Christian” savages from the Quebec colony, 


86 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


under French leadership, would be sent to 
raid the border. Thus the natives got credit 
only for utter treachery and bad faith. They 
were hunted from place to place. Their 
corn fields were destroyed. They were kept 
away from the food supplies of the coast. 
Comparatively few were killed by bullets, 
but famine, exposure and disease wasted 
them by wholesale. When the French gave 
up the contest, practically all of the pitiful 
remnant went and joined the colony near 
Quebec, where their few descendants still 
remain. 

Of events at Fronts Neck during these 
years there is little to be said. Captain 
Front had a great landed estate, but the 
Neck itself seems to have been his home. 
The records show that he sold off many 
parcels from his outside land, enough to sug¬ 
gest that he may have lived upon his prin¬ 
cipal. He had some black servants or slaves 
and had many employees. He seems to have 
lived in dignified and well-to-do content and 
comfort. The conditions which had given 


THIS BECOMES PROUTS NECK 


87 


to the Neck its prominence had changed. 
Lumber had become king, and mill saws 
and ox teams were active, but the Cammock 
tract did not excel in big pines and its 
effective locations for sawmill sites were few. 
The French surrender, too, had opened up 
the competitive fisheries on the Banks of 
Newfoundland, and some Scarborough ves¬ 
sels went there for their fares. The star of 
business empire, mast trade and all, tended 
towards Dunstan Landing. The Ferry be¬ 
came obsolete, and the wharf at the Flake 
Yards had few except local visitors. 

Captain Timothy Prout died, as has been 
said, April 5, 1768, having spent about forty 
years of his long life upon his Neck prop¬ 
erty. He did not take much part in public 
affairs, but apparently lived something like 
an English country squire, a good church 
member and citizen, with most of his family 
grouped about him. The Neck proper had 
been cleared up for farming purposes on the 
easterly, northerly and southerly parts. The 
other portion was pasture land. Alexander 


88 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


Kirkwood and Mary Prout, his wife, lived 
on the southwesterly side of the Neck, at 
the southerly corner of the field toward the 
Checkley House. The Kirkwood cellar was 
the starting point on the present recorded 
division plan of the Neck. The son Joseph, 
as is indicated by references in deeds, lived 
with his father on the easterly side of the 
Neck. 

Captain Prout made an exceedingly formal 
will, which was duly allowed. The original 
was destroyed in the fire which burned the 
Cumberland County Probate Court records. 
A copy of this, which has been preserved, 
shows that he gave to his son Joseph for his 
lifetime “the house we now live in with the 
furniture in his room and the kitchen” and 
several tracts of outside land, “Also my ne¬ 
gro men named Caesar and Adam to be his 
servants, together with the stock of cattle, 
horses and swine with their breed.” The 
family coat of arms went to the son, Timo¬ 
thy. The son, Ebenezer, got his mother’s 
picture and the daughter, Elizabeth, had “the 


THIS BECOMES PROUTS NECK 


89 


chest of drawers, table and looking glass that 
is in my room with her bed and bedding.” 
Mary Kirkwood received “the best silver 
cann and silver spoon,” also one-quarter part 
of his real estate in Scarborough. Abigail 
and Ebenezer were remembered with real 
estate. A tract of land was given to the 
church, for repairing the meeting house or 
to aid in building a new one. Various other 
bequests and devises were made, with condi¬ 
tions and limitations. The will was dated 
September i, A. D. 1767, and “in the seventh 
year of the reign of our sovereign Lord, 
George the third.” His sons, Timothy and 
Joseph Prout, with his son-in-law, Alexander 
Kirkwood, were made executors. 

Evidently the formal provisions of the 
will were found to be unworkable, and the 
children, the next year after the decease of 
Mr. Scottow, united in a mutual deed of di¬ 
vision, declaring that there was dispute about 
certain parts thereof and an amicable settle¬ 
ment was desired. The outside beneficiaries 
did not join, and the rights of creditors and 
7 


90 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


unborn children could not be determined. 
Almost a medley of suits, petitions and exe¬ 
cution sales appear upon the record, cover¬ 
ing a series of years. The large tract at 
Scarboro Beach went through various hands 
and came into possession of the Gunnisons 
and the Seaveys. 

In the meantime the War of the Revolu¬ 
tion came on. While Fronts Neck, as a 
locality, had no part in the stirring events 
’which followed, it held an exceedingly 
exposed position. The British warships 
dominated the coast, and any exhibition of 
business activity would have invited attack. 
Even the little fishing boats that ventured 
out were captured. Cattle and live stock 
were confiscated. Falmouth, which had expe¬ 
rienced rapid growth, was burned and made 
desolate by the bombardment of Mowatt. 
Dunstan Landing, far up the Scarborough 
River, took on importance, as no naval ves¬ 
sel would venture to go there, especially 
after the experience of the Margaretta at 
Machias. A large part of the townsmen 


THIS BECOMES PROUTS NECK 


91 


were in the Continental Army. It was a 
period of hardship and poverty, particularly 
along the exposed coast. Consequently we 
find, during those years, little evidence of 
anything being done in the way of business. 

When the war was over, there was almost 
an inrush of immigrants to Maine. The 
population of Scarborough at the time of 
the first census, in 1790, was almost precisely 
the same as that of Falmouth. The coasting 
trade revived. Prouts Neck emerged from 
its obscurity. 

By the division agreement of 1769, Joseph 
Prout received, with other outside parcels, 
forty-three acres on the easterly side of the 
Neck, with the great barn and corn house, 
he having already seven acres and the home¬ 
stead dwelling, making fifty acres in all. 
Alexander Kirkwood and Mary, his wife, re¬ 
ceived fifty-one acres on the southwest side, 
they having also seven acres and a house 
there. The Neck had a division fence and 
stone wall, since removed for building pur¬ 
poses, marking the line between the two 


92 


OI.D PROUTS NECK 


portions. The total acreage of the two parts 
does not, as named, amount to the old meas¬ 
urement of one hundred and twelve acres. 
It is quite useless to trace the details of law¬ 
suits, attachments and conveyances. Captain 
Alexander Kirkwood was a Scotchman, and 
one gets the impression that he had the 
national characteristic of thrift, combined 
with a good allowance of pugnacity. The 
references to other parties do not indicate to 
the investigator that they were greatly en¬ 
dowed with the Kirkwood quality of frugal¬ 
ity. Some of the conveyances manifestly 
were not recorded. It may be that they re¬ 
pose in some of the files of courts. There 
were, quite likely, some odd house lots. 

The net result, as it appears, was that the 
whole Neck came, toward the close of the 
century, into the hands of Alexander and 
Mary Kirkwood, with some references to uses 
or trusts. Alexander and Mary then con¬ 
veyed the whole easterly end of the Neck, 
sixty-one acres, which they had obtained by 
court levy, to Timothy Prout Hicks. He 


THIS BECOMES PROUTS NECK 


93 


had been given one hundred pounds ster¬ 
ling in his grandfather’s will, to be paid him 
when he became of age, and perhaps received 
land in lieu of cash. This tract, which had 
the great barn and buildings upon it, Hicks 
sold, with considerable degree of promptness, 
to Robert Libby, of Scarborough. Joseph 
Prout had retained seventeen acres, adjoin¬ 
ing the same, and this he conveyed at about 
the same time, 1788, also to Robert Libby 
and Hannah, his wife. 

Judge Robert Southgate, of Dunstan, ap¬ 
pears prominently in the transactions. He 
had undertaken to settle up the Timothy 
Prout estate, which had for many years been 
involved in court proceedings. Captain Alex¬ 
ander Kirkwood having died without com¬ 
pleting the business. Accordingly, we find 
that in 1808 he conveyed the Mary Kirk¬ 
wood fifty-one acres on the southwest side of 
the Neck to John Libby, Jr., and Thomas 
Libby, 3rd. The tradition is that Mary 
Kirkwood turned over to him this tract in 
payment for his legal services. 


94 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


The place had therefore become Libby’s 
Neck, the easterly part being owned by 
Robert Libby and his wife and the west¬ 
erly part by John Libby, Jr., and Captain 
Thomas Libby, 3rd. It thus remained until 
1830, when Thomas Libby purchased the 
entire interest and became sole owner of 
the Neck. 





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Pkouts Neck House, 1870 







IX. 

IN THE LIBBY OCCUPATION. 


may reckon the date of the passing of 
the Neck into the hands of the Libby 
family as being about 1800, although Cap¬ 
tain Thomas Libby did not acquire the sole 
proprietorship from Judge Southgate and 
the co-tenant Libbys until about thirty years 
after that time. The whole country had 
then outgrown its colonial days and had 
become a new and fast growing nation. In 
the beginning the coast was about all that 
was definitely known. Conveyance was 
almost wholly by water routes. When the 
natives told of the great waters of the lakes 
beyond, it was for a considerable time sup¬ 
posed that the Pacific Ocean was meant. In 
this region the Indians regarded the White 
Mountains, the Crystal Hills, as the abode 
of the Great Spirit, and themselves rarely 
ventured there. It was suggested by some 


96 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


early voyagers that from those mountain 
tops a view might be had of the great west¬ 
ern ocean. The seacoast lost its prominence 
when the interior country was becoming 
well developed. Prouts Neck was then little 
more than a valuable farm and a place of 
dim colonial recollections. Its attractive¬ 
ness was apparent, and the owners took spe¬ 
cial pride in the place. The Libby family 
always had for it a feeling of loyalty, though 
the primitive advantages and conditions had 
largely disappeared. 

Clipper ships took the place of the slow- 
moving sloops and schooners, and then came 
the steamboats. The Napoleonic wars, when 
America did a large part of the world’s com¬ 
merce, stimulated the building of ships, in 
which business the Neck had but little part. 
The establishment of stage coaches was a 
great innovation, and the demand for new 
and better roads became urgent. The over¬ 
land routes of travel were, curious to say, 
much promoted by the War of 1812, when 


IN THK LIBBY OCCUPATION 


97 


the sea power of the English cruisers made 
coastwise communication by ships unsafe. 

People of the olden time, like their de¬ 
scendants, wished to travel fast. The stage 
coaches attained such reckless rate of speed 
that the early schedule of four days from 
Portland to Boston became reduced, so that 
an express coach, with its four galloping 
horses and driver with his horn, could, by 
leaving at two o’clock in the morning, if all 
went well, arrive in Boston with its soundly 
shaken passengers at ten in the evening. 

Maine, whose development had been ob¬ 
structed in various ways for more than a 
century, took on phenomenal growth. Peo¬ 
ple gathered more and more in cities. Iri 
1820 it became an independent state. Prouts 
Neck, though stranded in the general cur¬ 
rent of progress, had specially valuable 
qualities. There is little now to suggest a 
reason for the early emphasis placed upon 
the importance of the fisheries in this vicin¬ 
ity, whose products it was said were worth 


98 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


more than those of the gold and silver mines 
of Spain. There were many varieties of 
fish. The alewives and the shad, to say 
nothing of salmon, came in the late spring¬ 
time in such quantities as to choke the 
streams. The Indians and first settlers de¬ 
pended upon these fish for their fertilizer. 
One or more alewives to each hill of maize 
would produce a bountiful crop. The salmon 
were so plentiful that one finds in the in¬ 
denture of an apprentice the provision that 
he should not be fed upon salmon too much 
of the time. The mackerel arrived later in 
schools literally of miles in extent. In the 
fall came vast shoals of herring and other 
varieties. One of special account, though 
not of utility for human food, was the men¬ 
haden or porgy. In summer these came 
in schools of incalculable numbers. They 
served as food for other fishes and their 
coming attracted the cod, haddock, hake 
and other species of “ground fish” of com¬ 
mercial value. 

Captain Thomas Libby and his boys did 


IN THE LIBBY OCCUPATION 


99 


not need to follow the sea with boats. He 
had a large weir or pound in front of the 
Neck, into which the fishes came of their 
own accord. It would sometimes be over¬ 
run to such extent that he would give away 
the surplus by the cart load to anyone who 
would carry them away, and was fain to 
open the exits of the pound and let the im¬ 
prisoned occupants go free. The product 
largely exceeded the demand, and the profits 
were not large. Before the time of railroads 
marketing was not easy. Large lobsters at 
five cents apiece, haddock at twenty-five 
cents a dozen and mackerel at a dollar a 
barrel did not produce much revenue. 

The fishing by wholesale methods with 
trawls, and especially with the seines, some¬ 
times of a quarter of a mile in length, which 
would envelop great schools in a single 
drawing, destroyed and frightened away the 
migratory fish. They left as if by instinct of 
self-preservation. The porgies, the so-called 
bait fish, were taken for their oil, and many 
“pogy factories” were established along the 


100 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


coast. These fishes became almost as scarce 
as the wild pigeons, which in the earlier days 
would sometimes break the branches of trees 
with their weight. With the wasteful and 
almost wanton destruction of the migratory 
sea visitors the others diminished in num¬ 
bers, and the tales of the big fishing fares 
were added to the other traditions. Yet the 
sea still furnished abundance of fertilizer for 
agricultural purposes, the little harbor was a 
convenient shelter for the still numerous 
local vessels, and the Libbys held their Neck 
with pride of exclusive possession, so that 
Captain Thomas was, in limited fashion, 
something of a baron. 

Along in the early fifties the modest and 
humble clam brought about a contest that 
enshrined its name in legal literature, besides 
causing great expense to the Libbys. As 
the fishermen were then going upon long 
voyages, commonly to the Banks of New¬ 
foundland, it was necessary to take with 
them a large amount of fish bait, and this 
made demand for clams, removed from the 


IN THE EIBBY OCCUPATION 


101 


shell and preserved in salt. The curving 
shore in front of the Neck was prolific with 
clams, and ships would anchor off the shore 
and help themselves without asking permis¬ 
sion. The town was advised that this valu¬ 
able asset belonged to its inhabitants as their 
common privilege, and voted an ordinance 
to the effect that no one should take clams 
without paying a municipal license fee for a 
permit. 

Captain Libby asserted that the land to low 
water mark was his own, and the sea prod¬ 
ucts of all kinds there were likewise his own 
by chartered rights, coming down by particu¬ 
lar grant from the King of England. Daniel 
Moulton, called “Hickory” by reason of his 
loyalty to the principles of General Andrew 
Jackson, was chosen town agent to make a 
test of the matter in the behalf of the inhab¬ 
itants. A suit was brought, which appears 
in the Reports of the Maine Supreme Court 
as Moulton versus Libby. Nathan Clifford, 
afterwards a Justice of the United States 
Supreme Court, was counsel for the town. 


102 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


and William Pitt Fessenden, subsequently 
member of the United States Senate and 
national Secretary of the Treasury, appeared 
for Mr. Libby. It was a long and exhaustive 
contest, involving the scope of original royal 
prerogative and ownership, the King’s first 
colonial grant, the feudal privilege of the 
sole right of fishing and fowling, contained 
in the Cammock Patent, and which had be¬ 
come vested in Mr. Libby by regular course 
of conveyance. The decision was rendered 
by Ether Shepley, the Chief Justice, and 
ratified by the Court. It denied the conten¬ 
tion of the defendant Libby. It is still cited 
as a noted and leading case in relation to 
the public interests in and over fisheries and 
defining the limitation of private ownership 
in beaches and the seashore. It has been 
widely quoted and approved by the Courts 
of other states and by the United States 
Courts. 

It was held that the fisheries are and have 
been from time immemorial a great and nec¬ 
essary privilege belonging to the people at 


IN THE LIBBY OCCUPATION 


103 


large; that the shell fish comes into the same 
category as the fish that swim and move; 
that upon the shore space between the ebb 
and flow of the tide the public have the 
same rights as upon the water; that the state 
has authority to regulate the fishing rights 
within the three-mile limit along the coast, 
and may delegate this authority to a town, 
as was done in this instance. Therefore the 
interests of the public in these matters were 
declared to be superior to those of the pro¬ 
prietor, even upon his own land, where the 
ocean tides ebb and flow. It was asserted, 
however, that the rule applies only to the 
premises between high and low water mark, 
as defined by Colony Ordinance, and does 
not include any privilege of approach over 
private adjacent land. The beach can law¬ 
fully be entered upon only from the water 
side or by means of a public landing, or 
highway established by statutory authority. 
This is now the recognized law applicable to 
such cases. The result was a great disap¬ 
pointment to the worthy Captain Libby and 


104 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


also brought upon him a serious financial 
burden of expense. 

Even before the date of the lawsuit 
changes had begun which now largely dom¬ 
inate the character of the Neck. Thomas 
Libby, with his large family, occupied the 
mansion house on the western front, which 
had substantially the location of the Jocelyn 
or Scottow garrison. People began to appre¬ 
ciate and to visit the almost forgotten sea- 
coast for purposes of pleasure and recreation. 
It was near enough to Portland for a pleas¬ 
ant drive. The railroads brought people 
from a distance, urgent for accommodation. 
The proprietor yielded to the pressure and 
opened his house as a place for transient 
entertainment. He was a deeply religious 
man and kept in a conspicuous place the 
notice, “Positively no entertainment on the 
Sabbath.” Visitors came more and more. 
The sea food was as popular as the sea air. 
A guest once wrote as a menu, “Here you 
will find the savory teal, the lordly lobster 
and the succulent Scarborough clam.” Pres- 


IN THE LIBBY OCCUPATION 105 

ently he built an enlargement to the man¬ 
sion and welcomed applicants from afar as 
regular “summer boarders” in addition to 
his transient guests. Wild fowl were still 
abundant and the fishing was fine. The son, 
Veranus, was a mighty sportsman and a 
companionable guide. Scarborough Beach 
and Old Orchard began to enlarge, and the 
seashore for summer visitation grew fash¬ 
ionable. 

A somewhat gleeful story is told of a bank 
cashier who was exceedingly fond of fishing 
off the rocks for cunners. The proprietor 
furnished an equipment of rods and lines 
and baskets. One day the gentleman be¬ 
came greatly interested and ventured farther 
and farther out in spite of the caution of his 
attendant, a bright Irish boy. Those who 
are experienced know that the waves come 
in with varying volume. At length a big 
breaker dashed upon the rock. The fisher¬ 
man scrambled back, and as he stood up, 
dripping and panting, exclaimed, “I wouldn’t 
care if I hadn’t lost that fine basket of fish.” 


8 


106 


OLD PROUTS NRCK 


The boy replied, “Don’t yer worry, sir, ye’ll 
find the basket all right.” Winship gazed 
upon it as the tide bore it steadily away, and 
exclaimed, in caustic tone, “Perhaps you can 
tell me where I shall find that basket!” “Ye 
may depind upon it,” was the answer, “that 
ye’ll find it in the bill when yez come to 
settle.” 

Prouts Neck—the resident family insisted 
always upon calling it Libby’s Neck—con¬ 
tinued to expand. Captain Silas, the oldest 
son, was given a lot westerly of the mansion 
and built a small hotel of his own, which was 
the nucleus of the present Cammock House. 
Then Benaiah erected a house to the east¬ 
ward, which later became The Willows. 

Captain Thomas Libby died in 1871, es¬ 
teemed and honored by all who knew him. 
He numbered his guests among his personal 
friends. By his will the Neck property 
came to the three children, Silas J., Benaiah 
and Minerva, and he attempted to have it 
held indefinitely without separation. A way 
was found to circumvent this purpose, and 


IN THE EIBBY OCCUPATION 


107 


the three devisees made an apportionment of 
the western slope into individual homesteads. 
Minerva, the last of these goodly proprie¬ 
tors, died in 1879. A grandson had then 
built the West Point House, Mr. Kaler had 
erected the Southgate and the Foss family 
had established the Checkley. 

A division became necessary and they had 
the wisdom to have a plan of the undivided 
portion made by S. L. Stephenson, a veteran 
railroad cartographer. Bar Harbor was then 
having its development, and loud complaint 
was being made because people there were 
excluding others from the sea by wire fences 
extending to the water. The Libbys, there¬ 
fore, incorporated into their division plan a 
broad marginal way around the whole, to be 
kept perpetually for the common use of the 
parties, their heirs, assigns and guests, with 
shore, beach and bathing privileges, so that 
the ocean frontage could never be closed to 
access. It is private property, but must be 
kept open for the general convenience and 
use of all the land owners. 


108 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


The division was consummated, and the 
inevitable time then arrived when all of the 
peninsula, so long jealously and carefully 
guarded, was thrown upon the general mar¬ 
ket. It fortunately passed, with little or no 
exception, into the hands of people of finest 
quality, who have displayed a spirit of pride 
and loyalty as if the old Neck had come to 
them as an inheritance. It has had splen¬ 
did benefactors among the living and among 
honored residents who have passed on. The 
Charles E. Thomas Library is a most val¬ 
uable institution. The Sanctuary Park, pre¬ 
sented by Charles S. Homer, Jr., is of very 
great advantage to the whole place. The 
Prouts Neck Country Club grounds, com¬ 
prising the Ethan Wiggin farm, which was 
once one of the busiest and most populous 
of the coastal marts of trade, has proved to 
be a particularly fine acquisition. That Club 
and the Prouts Neck Association are vol¬ 
unteer public-spirited organizations, whose 
members vie with each other in maintaining 


IN THE EIBBY OCCUPATION 


109 


the fine, but never supercilious, quality of 
the community. 

Black Point and Prouts Neck have an an¬ 
cient record, historical and traditional, which 
is quite unique and worth while to know. 
Here an attempt was made to plant a settle¬ 
ment upon the ancient lines of pure aristoc¬ 
racy and kingly authority, united with the 
religious ideals of the Church of England. 
All that, in the process of time, was over¬ 
thrown and outgrown. Its exclusive aspira¬ 
tions became numbered with forgotten things. 
Prominent still, it is expanding upon the best 
modern lines. Its past contains a fund of 
information, both interesting and valuable. 
That, at least, may be discerned. As to its 
future, when we inhale its summer air and 
gaze upon its beauties of earth and sea and 
sky, what better can we say than to quote the 
words of Webster: “There she stands, be¬ 
hold her and judge for yourselves.” 


X. 

LOCATIONS AND HISTORICAL 
PLACES. 

JT may be of assistance to those who take 
interest in such matters to mention 
briefly some of the places and objects 
within the Cammock Patent and in the 
vicinity which are of historical association. 

The Governor Henry Jocelyn Residence, 
There is no doubt that the original house 
erected by Captain Thomas Cammock was 
situated on the Ferry Rock point, at the 
westerly end of the Country Club grounds. 
This was occupied by Cammock and passed 
from him to Margaret, his widow, and his 
well-beloved friend, Henry Jocelyn, Esq., 
whom she subsequently married. When 
Jocelyn became what may perhaps be called 
contestant Governor of the Province of 
Maine, he and his wife resided there. The 
irregular trail known as the King’s High- 



The Eastern Cove 













LOCATIONS AND HISTORICAL PLACES 111 


way, from the Ambrose Boaden ferry at 
Higgins Beach, came over the Black Point 
plains and passing the house continued, 
after the ferry crossing, to Pine’s Point and 
thence onward to Portsmouth and Boston. 
The building itself long since disappeared. 
It was probably destroyed in 1690. 

The Flake Yards were upon the Scarbor¬ 
ough River shore, just northerly and beyond 
the Jocelyn mansion. 

The Salt Works, where the sea water was 
pumped into an evaporating basin, were in 
the same neighborhood, both being upon the 
bank of the Scarborough—then called the 
Owascoag or Black Point—River. 

The Old Wharf was where the present 
dilapidated structure now stands. This 
wharf location is quite certainly nearly three 
centuries old. 

The Public Landing, Along the river 
bank, extending some distance each way 
from the wharf, was the public landing place. 
It has existed “from the time whereof the 
memory of man runneth not to the contrary,” 


112 


OI.D PROUTS NECK 


though quite indefinite in extent. When 
traffic was mostly water borne, space for 
deposit, boat access, loading and unloading 
hay and general connection between sea 
and shore was indispensable. Accordingly, 
“landings” were established as well as high¬ 
ways. The bounds evidently were not made 
certain and were defined only by usage. 
The prescriptive right there has been kept 
alive by continuous custom to the present 
time. 

The Old Church stood upon a little mound 
about a quarter mile northwardly from the 
Ferry Rocks, between the Ethan Wiggin 
house and the river, and not far from the 
river bank. It had, in English fashion, a 
churchyard adjoining. This churchyard was 
plainly distinguishable by its nameless head¬ 
stones, which remained until somewhat re¬ 
cent times. The gravestones, it is said, were 
taken up and used in the foundation of the 
Wiggin barn, and the old God’s acre plowed 
over. This church is marked on one of the 
ancient maps and is represented as having a 


I.OCATIONS AND HISTORICAL PLACES 113 


steeple. It was built prior to 1671 and was 
quite surely Episcopalian, as the good 
churchman, Jocelyn, then refers to it as “Our 
Church.” Robert Jordan, the last minister 
named, who was quite as zealous in his sup¬ 
port of the Church of England as he was 
in his land speculations, probably preached 
there as well as at Spurwink, Casco now 
Portland, and at Saco. This building was 
destroyed in the French and Indian inva¬ 
sion of 1690 and was not rebuilt. 

The Massacre Pond was within the limits 
of Sprague’s Massacre Farm. It was said 
to be a two-mile walk around it. 

The Great Grave, Between the Massacre 
Pond and the highway was “The Great 
Grave,” also noted upon the map. It was 
located just across the road from Mr, 
Sprague’s game keeper’s house. In this 
grave were buried the nineteen who were 
slain there by Indians in ambush, probably 
in the autumn of 1713. Over their remains 
was heaped a large mound of earth. It can¬ 
not now be easily identified. 


114 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


Pine Point Just southerly from the 
Black Rocks was a slight projection toward 
the river called Pine Point. This should not 
be confounded with Charles Pine’s Point, 
across the bay, the residence of the martial 
pioneer. 

(The population in Jocelyn’s time was 
reckoned at about three hundred, a large 
proportion being located upon the present 
Country Club grounds. This is the same 
estimated number as is given of the inhab¬ 
itants of the Plymouth Colony ten years 
after its founding, so that Black Point, the 
Cammock Patent, was evidently entitled to 
be considered a place of reputation.) 

Captain Swetts Battle Ground^ so called, 
begins with the place of ambuscade on 
Moor’s brook, near the present Black Point 
schoolhouse. Here a force of about ninety 
Massachusetts militiamen and Black Point 
residents, under command of Captain Benja¬ 
min Swett, of Hampton, N. H., and Lieuten¬ 
ant James Richardson, of Chelmsford, Mass., 
with about two hundred friendly Indians, 


LOCATIONS AND HISTORICAL PLACES 115 

were, in June, 1677, decoyed by what was 
supposed to be the main body of hostile 
Indians about two miles from the Jocelyn 
garrison on Garrison Cove at the Neck. A 
great force of the hostiles, supposed to be 
the clansmen of Mogg Heigon, who had 
been slain less than two months previous, 
suddenly arose from places of concealment. 
One of the most disastrous battles in colonial 
history followed. Captain Swett and Lieu¬ 
tenant Richardson, with sixty of their men, 
were killed or fatally wounded before the 
remnant reached the shelter of the fort. 

Scottows Fort, The great stockade built 
in 1681, and called by this name, was located 
on the ridge near the sea, within and upon 
the Atlantic House premises and easterly 
from the James Frank Coolbroth house, now 
occupied by John M. Kaler. This was one 
of the strongest fortifications in the Prov¬ 
ince. It had an outside ditch with palisade 
walls and could shelter all of the inhabitants. 
It was abandoned upon the approach of the 
overwhelming French and Indian force in 


116 


OLD PROUTS neck 


1690 and was by them destroyed. Most of 
the outline that showed on the face of the 
earth has been plowed and smoothed off, but 
a part of one of the bastions or flankers may 
still be traced in the edge of the woods. 

Boadens Ferry, at the Spurwink River, 
was at the easterly point at Higgins Beach. 
The ledges there, reaching southerly, were 
called The Hubbard Rocks. 

John Jocelyris Cave. This was evidently 
a hollow place under the cliff called Castle 
Rocks, southerly from the present entrance 
to the bathing house lot from the Marginal 
Way. This was one of the places noted by 
John Jocelyn, brother of Henry, who pub¬ 
lished a book called Two Voyages to New 
England, the first voyage being in 1638 and 
the other in 1663. The cave has been pretty 
much obliterated by the removal of ledge 
rock for building purposes. 

JocelyrCs Garrison, called also Scottow’s 
Garrison, stood on the westerly side of the 
Neck overlooking Garrison Cove. The orig¬ 
inal garrison house was built prior to the 


I.OCATIONS AND HISTORICAL PLACES 117 

first Indian war of 1675. It was surrendered 
by Jocelyn to Mogg Heigon, who left it 
intact, so that it was again occupied. In 
May, 1677, it was beseiged by Mogg, who 
was killed in an assault upon it. This was 
headquarters for Captain Swett’s company, 
which fell into ambush at Moor’s Brook. It 
continued to be a fort until it was abandoned 
to the French and Indians upon their inva¬ 
sion in 1690. The structure was then de¬ 
stroyed, the cellar alone indicating the spot. 
Near by was “The Doganne,” evidently an 
arsenal for the storage of ammunition. The 
present building erected over the cellar was 
purchased by Charles E. Morgan, Jr., and 
moved back a little distance and remodelled. 
This was the Captain Thomas Libby house. 
It is said to have been erected by Timothy 
Prout after the second settlement and recon¬ 
structed by Alexander Kirkwood. Thomas 
Libby made additions to the house, and it 
was for a long time his conspicuous resi¬ 
dence. It was the first hotel on the Neck, 
called the Prouts Neck House. As a car- 


118 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


penter declared, “The old house is in there 
somewhere and is about two hundred years 
old.” 

The Old Fort, so called, on the West¬ 
ern Cove, where the dauntless eight resisted 
the French and Indian attack of 1703, was 
located upon the sandy bank about where the 
West Point House garage now stands. The 
defence of this garrison house by Captain 
Larrabee, the Libbys and Pine is historic. 
The ravine where the French sappers at¬ 
tempted to undermine the building remained 
until it was filled up in the construction of 
the Checkley House road. 

The Kirkwood Cellar, so called, was situ¬ 
ated about at the angle where the town road 
turns toward the Checkley House. Near 
this cellar was the starting point of the sur¬ 
vey for making the division plan of the Neck 
now in use. Probably this marks the first 
residence of Captain Alexander Kirkwood 
upon the Neck. It has now been filled up 
and no longer appears. 

The Burial Place of Mogg Heigon. In 


LOCATIONS AND HISTORICAL PLACES 119 


the rear of the Willows Hotel lot and east- 
wardly from the buildings, an Indian burial 
place was accidentally discovered some forty 
years ago. A young man, Alvin Plummer, 
was making an excavation to set out a tree, 
when he uncovered a human skull. Fur¬ 
ther investigation showed others arranged 
in regular order. Members of the Maine 
Historical Society were notified, and care¬ 
ful excavation disclosed thirteen skeletons 
in a state of almost perfect preservation, 
arranged in a circle around a larger one 
adorned with strings of wampum and with 
a rude copper breastplate. Analysis of the 
copper showed that it was not of American 
origin. Therefore it was argued that the 
burial took place after the coming of the 
English. The only time when the place 
was open for native occupation was during 
the period of the Indian Wars. The ex¬ 
planation suggested was that when Mogg 
Heigon was killed, with others of his clans¬ 
men, in his unsuccessful attack upon Joce¬ 
lyn’s fort in 1677, his followers, before re- 


120 


OLD PROUTS NECK 


tiring, ceremoniously interred their Chief, 
with the circle of his dead warriors about 
him, and left them concealed in the porous 
sand. They were all in sitting posture, and 
it appeared like a council of the dead. This 
is spoken of as the burial place of Mogg of 
the Kennebunk Arrowpoint, called in Indian 
language Heigon. He was the same named 
by Whittier, Mogg Megone. Plummer te¬ 
naciously refused to part with his treasured 
bones, wampum and copper. He held them 
until he died, when the aggregation was de¬ 
cently buried in some place unknown. 

The Western Point Landing Place, This 
point, where the float is now maintained, 
was long used, as it now is used, for a sort 
of natural wharf. Indifferent to waves and 
storms and time, it has remained unmoved 
while generations of hardy navigators, ad¬ 
venturous settlers and happy pleasure seek¬ 
ers have come and gone. 

Winslow Homer s Studio, This well 
known and charming spot, on the southerly 
side, has become a place of pilgrimage for 



WAI.K TO THE Sanctuary 













LOCATIONS AND HISTORICAL PLACES 121 

lovers of art. Homer lived generally alone 
in winter, but not as a recluse. There he 
did his best work. He loved the restless 
waves, the sky with its frowns and smiles, 
and the wonders of the sunset and the sun¬ 
rise. He once said of his greatest painting, 
kept long upon his easel, that he had waited 
four months for the sunset view that his 
fancy demanded but could not catch. It 
came at last and he preserved it. The mere 
painting of a picture he declared is nothing. 
It must be studied and thought out. “Mr. 
Winslow,” as he was quite commonly called 
by those about him, was by strangers re¬ 
garded as somewhat reticent and austere, 
but to his intimates he was most genial and 
delightful. “The music of his life, that 
bides with us long after.” The circular 
grist mill stone in his yard came from Mill 
Creek, not far from the Portland and Saco 
road. It long did useful service in the col¬ 
ony times. He loved his old-fashioned gar¬ 
den flowers as truly as he loved his friends. 


9 


t 


122 OLD PROUTS NRCK 

There are those who recognize the faces in 
his paintings and can tell you the names of 
the individuals. “You see the feller in the 
halibut picture” (The Fog Warning), said 
Henry Lee ; “that’s me.” 

The George Cleeve Location, Over on the 
Spurwink River, opposite Richmond Island, 
is the place where George Cleeve, from Ply¬ 
mouth, England, relying upon the word of 
King Charles, in 1630, a year before Cam- 
mock obtained his grant, made his clearing 
and established his home. From this place 
he was two years later ejected by the su¬ 
perior title of Trelawney and removed to 
Machegonne, now Portland, and became the 
first settler there. This is now the Ram 
Island Farm of Mr. P. W. Sprague, and the 
Cleeve residence was probably on the beau¬ 
tiful spot where the flower gardens now are. 
One can readily appreciate the good judg¬ 
ment of Cleeve in making his selection and 
his regret at leaving. For fifteen stormy 
years he was local Governor of the province, 
then called Lygonia, and regarded Henry 


f 


LOCATIONS AND HISTORICAL PLACES 123 

Jocelyn at the Ferry Rocks as something 
of a rebel. 

The Black Rocks, When one sees these 
rocks he understands how they got their 
name. From this point, in direct line to the 
branching of the Spurwink, was the upper 
bound of the Cammock grant enclosing the 
fifteen hundred acres. 






















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